‘Plastic is a beautiful thing if you can take care of it’

Shabra Plastics is the largest plastics recycler in Ireland, recycling 100,000 tonnes of plastics annually. Based in Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, the business was founded over 30 years ago by Rita Shah and Oliver Brady.

Shabra Plastics operates a so-called closed-loop process for the recovery, reprocessing and re-use of polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). As well as PE and PET, Shabra also recycles high-density polyethylene (HDPE), PE film, coat hangers, plastic crates and pallets. “We source our materials from waste companies collecting from householders and from industrial waste,” explains Rita Shah.

The facilities at Shabra segregates cardboard/paper, plastics and aluminium into individual waste streams – selling the cardboard/paper and aluminium to other companies and cleaning and shredding the plastics into flakes and pellets for resale and reuse. Its sister company, Shabra Polymex, manufacturers bin liners, supermarket shopping bags and promotional bags for markets in Europe, Asia, Africa, Japan and the United States.

Credit: The Irish Times | 2018