Highly lucrative? How lucrative are we talking about? You buy the scrap PET plastic from the pickers at 25 to 30 naira per kilogram and after processing can sell for as high as 400 naira or more per kilogram.
Now down to the details.
Recycling business in Nigeria is about the best kept secret. It's about the third biggest money spinner in the pecking order after oil and gas, then banking sectors.
Most specifically, PET recycling.
PET ( PolyEthylene Terephthalate), is the type of plastic used for most soft drinks, like cola drinks, malt drinks and table water.
The very interesting part is that it's recyclable to produce new materials and products and the recycled ones are in very high demand both locally and internationally.
The monetary value of the recycled forms varies as listed below:
1. The baled form: This is about the simplest and easiest form one can start with. It requires the least stress and least maintenance. You just buy from those who pick it directly from the streets at the rate of about 25 to 30 naira per kilo. You compress or bale it with a baling machine into bales of 150kg, 200kg, 300kg or even 500 kilograms per bale depending on the size and power of the baling machine and sell at about 100 to 120 naira or more per kilo depending on your buyers.
The baling machine, depending on the baling weight you want costs between 1.7million to 5million naira. Total set up cost, depending on your production size is between 3 million and 7 million naira.
You can easily recoup your investment in 3 to 6 months or less if you're serious.

2. The crushed form: This has a higher monetary value than the baled form. Though the machine is relatively cheaper than the baling machine but requires frequent maintenance, mostly about sharpening and changing the crusher blades.
You buy either the raw ones directly from the pickers at about 25 to 30 naira per kilo, or you buy the baled ones at about 100 to 120 naira per kilo, you crush with the crusher machine into smaller sizes and sell at about 160 to 200 naira or more per kilo.
The crusher machines prices vary depending on the production rate of the machine. From about 100kg, 200kg up to 2000kg per hour.
Price ranges between 1.3million to 7million naira.
Total set up cost, depending on your production rate per day is between 2.5million to 10 million naira.
You can easily recoup your investment in 6 months or less if you're serious.

3. Now to the big fish..
The crushed, washed and dried form: This sells for as high as 400 naira or more per kilo. If you have a recycling line of say 500 kilogram per hour and you run for about 8 hours a day, then you can produce about 4000 kilograms per day. That's a revenue of about 1.6 million naira per day. If you optimize your production hours to 10 hours per day, that's about 2 million naira every day, all things being equal.
You may buy the raw PET scrap directly from the pickers at 25 to 30 naira per kilo. You will have to take it through a series of recycling processes and machines. The final output form of the PET plastic would be clean, without any label, no cover or ring plastic. And then bagged in say 20 or 30 kilo bags.
Trust me, the demand for this is so high, even if you set up a 10,000 kilogram per hour recycling plant, you CANNOT meet up with the demand.

At Beatissima Engineering Limited, Sango-Ota, Ogun state, Nigeria, we build the complete PET plastic recycling machines and set-up the complete recycling plant. We also build various other industrial machines like conveyors, automatic block moulding machines, stone crusher and quarry machines, hammer mill, jaw crushers, etc.
Call +234 (0)8032680434, 09017637088