Plastic Packaging takes responsibility for plastics in Namibia

Plastic Packaging is a proudly Namibian company that was established in 1982 by local businessmen who saw an opportunity to produce milk plastic bags for the dairy industry. It started off small and a lot of school fees were paid during the journey to make this company a world class plastic manufacturer giving local businesses and citizens a packaging solution.

The Plastic Packaging group, which treasures modesty as one of their values, took a big step in 2008 to incorporate a recycling plant, the first of its kind in Namibia. The plant was only intended to recycle the companies’ own in-house plastic waste. After some years, the need for recycling dump-site waste was appreciated and Plastic Packaging decided to step into that space and buy dump-site waste (dirty plastics) from collectors to recycle.

The main product manufactured from these recycled plastics, were black irrigation pipes. In 2018 the company invested in technology to clean the dirty plastics in such a way that it could be used in the film production in the Plastic Packaging non-food contact production hall. With this innovation, the company managed to increase the monthly recycling tonnage with approximately 80 tons.

Plastic Packaging is one of the co-founders of Recycle Namibia Forum (RNF) which is doing excellent work in our country. The forum is represented by passionate private sector companies who takes control of recycling and related activities in Namibia.

Plastic Packaging was also the initiator from private sector to assist government in organizing the National Cleanup Campaign on the 21st of September this year. In total 22 companies came on board to support this event. The main aim was to give everyone a plastic bag (made from 100% recycled material) to participate in the clean-up event. Also, to create an awareness. In total 643,000 plastic bags were manufactured for the clean-up event.

Plastic Packaging, together with Rent-A-Drum, identified the area where a lot of waste are leaked into the environment due to a lack of proper waste management. We created a section 21 company (non-profit organization) called Pristine Recycling Namibia, which source funds by placing a container with a baler machine in a remote area. This container is then allocated to a local businessman to run the station without the burden of start-up capital. With this project, we will be able to collect and recycle more that fits into the vision of Rent-A-Drum and Plastic Packaging.

Namibia is very fortunate to have a solution for plastic waste in the form of waste collectors, local recycling and Ohorongo Cement who has a waste to energy plant (burning plastic for energy with zero CO² emissions).

Erick Solheim, the head of UN environment said: “Plastic is not the problem, it is what we do with it.” Plastic Packaging believes that plastic creates a lot of value, but it must be used and disposed of responsibly.