Bulgarian plastic packaging producer Megaport (Veliko Tarnovo; www.megaport.bg) has reportedly commissioned a new EUR 1.8m recycling plant at group headquarters. According to several media reports, the facility – which is equipped with recycling machinery from Austria’s Erema (Ansfelden; www.erema.at) – is capable of processing 1.8 t of material each hour, which it turns into 1.2 t of recyclate. About 30 workers are employed at the plant, reports say, which sources its input from waste collections and processing plants in Sofia and Varna, among others.

First set up in 1992, Megaport purports to be “a leading manufacturer on the Bulgarian market for polymer and co-polymer films, packages and materials.” With a workforce of about 400, roughly 75% of total output goes into the domestic market, with the remainder heading for export, including to Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Greece, France and Macedonia, among others.

The company first established a PE recycling operation in Veliko Tarnovo in early 2008. It also owns Phoenix Plastic, a plastic waste recycling facility in Targovishte. Megaport says that about 50% of the recyclate produced at its plants is exported to other European Union members.