GreenFiber International to build plastics recycling plant in Romania

GreenFiber International, part of Green Group, the largest integrated recycling park in Southeastern Europe, has announced plans to invest €35 million (US$35 million) to build its third production plant for synthetic fibers made from 100% recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate). The new plant will be in Urziceni, Romania.

The company says the plant will be able to produce 30,000 short tons of synthetic material per year and should be operational by the first quarter of 2017. Additionally, GreenFiber says it is planning an addition investment, which will double the plant’s capacity by 2018.

Combining the Urziceni plant with the company’s other plastics recycling facilities in Buzau and Lasi, Romania, will give GreenFiber a combined recycled plastics production capacity of around 113,000 short tons per year.

"While the demand from our clients for regenerated fibers was rising, such an investment was made possible only following last year’s important boost of the operations in the upstream supply chain. In 2013–2015, we invested €23 million, part of which was to create a functional collection infrastructure in Romania and grow the clean PET collection volumes, while the other was to increase the operational capacities for the lines processing PET bottles prior to reaching our GreenFiber factories," says Clement Hung, CEO of Green Group companies.

To meet the needs of the facility, the company estimates that a total of 162,000 short tons of PET bottles will need to be processed, more than the total amount of PET produced in Romania.

Hung says, "GreenFiber is well equipped to face strong competition from long established producers, mostly from Asia, but in order to stay competitive we need to secure premium quality of fiber, made out of clean PET bottles. With last year’s investment in the Sigurec collection infrastructure, we now have 161 fixed and mobile collection points in 36 cities in Romania and we see a 10% monthly increase in collection. However, considering the poor collection infrastructure in Romania and insufficient quantities reaching GreenFiber, we are already importing 55% of resources from European markets, and we are taking in consideration to invest in Middle Eastern countries in order to bridge the gap of the supply from Europe."