MBA Polymers investing €10m to expand operations into India

Last week’s highly successful Plastic Recycling Show India, which far exceeded expectation in regard to both conference and show attendance, offered domestic and internationally operating plastics recyclers a platform to come together and present themselves as an industry.

And, as the Mumbai show amply demonstrated, India today presents unexplored opportunities for plastics recyclers as the plastics recycling industry grows and evolves. The country is increasingly attracting global attention from international companies who see the vast potential driven by a combination of legislation and regulations and a rising awareness of the need to address the problem of plastic waste pollution.

Among the international exhibitors was MBA Polymers, headquartered in New Jersey but active around the world. It has been in India since 2017 when it signed the first cooperation agreements with various Indian waste management companies. Sustainable Plastics talked with CEO Dr Felix-Michael Weber about the company’s ambitious plans for expansion in India.

Weber revealed that MBA Polymers would be opening multiple plastics recycling sites in India over the next five years, through 2030, with the first engineering plastics recycling site to be located near Pune (based in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra).

“We are planning to invest € 10 million in phases in setting up the various sites, with this first one around Pune having the capacity to recycle 20,000 tonnes of engineering plastics waste annually,” said Weber. The plant is scheduled to go into operation by the end of 2025. Pune is one of the key automotive hubs in India.

MBA Polymers’ patented plastics recycling technology has been developed over the past 25 years. The technology recovers pure plastics from plastics-rich shredder residue, producing post-consumer recycled resins—including ABS, PC/ABS, BS/HPS, and PP 8 HDPE—used in applications ranging from appliances to consumer products and industrial parts.  

Commenting on the potential of the Indian plastics recycling market, Weber noted that ‘India generates tremendous amounts of plastic waste, is the third largest producer of plastics and is regarded as a promising market to grow’.

According to new research, India tops the list of plastic polluters, generating plastic waste of 9.3 million tonnes annually, which roughly amounts to a fifth of global plastic emissions.

MBA Polymers currently has an administrative office registered as MBA Polymers India Pvt Ltd, which opened at Pune in 2023.  Since 2001, the company has opened and now operates five clean-tech sites based in Germany, Austria, China, UK and the USA, with a processing capacity of over 150,000 tonnes annually.