Plastics and packaging lines in Africa, scenario by scenario: injection, bags, pipe, recycling, paper and the tier that fits each market

The conditions that apply in every market

The scenarios, one by one

Scenario 1: a first injection moulding shop

A 150–300 tonne machine at US$30–75k, servo control adding 10–15%, with auxiliaries, a chiller and the first moulds on top. Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya ask this most, and the mould budget is the line most often missing. Injection moulding machine prices in Africa matches parts to tonnage and prices the auxiliaries.

The mould budget is missing from most first enquiries, and it is not a rounding error. A machine can run any mould that fits its platen and tonnage; a mould runs one product, and it carries the cycle time, the wall thickness and the surface finish that decide whether the part sells. Two shops with the same machine and different moulds are not in the same business.

Auxiliaries are the second omission. A moulding machine needs chilled water, dry material and a way of handling regrind; without them the cycle lengthens, the reject rate climbs and the saving on a cheaper machine is spent within a year on scrap. Servo control is worth its 10–15 per cent in any market where power is expensive or unreliable, because it cuts both the bill and the heat the chiller has to remove.

Scenario 2: crates, pallets and large parts

Crates, pallets and large housings need 400–500 tonne machines from US$100k and above, larger moulds and heavier cooling; the tonnage guide sets out the step and what changes in the shop when the machine gets heavier.

Going from 150–300 tonne to 400–500 tonne changes the building, not only the machine. Heavier clamp forces need a floor that takes the load, a crane or forklift that can change a mould that now weighs tonnes, and a chiller sized for a much larger shot. Shops that plan only the machine discover the mould change is a half-day job they cannot staff.

Crates and pallets also have a different commercial shape: the parts are bulky and cheap per kilogram, so the delivery radius is short and the customer is usually industrial rather than retail. That makes offtake contracts, not machine capacity, the thing to settle first.

Scenario 3: PET preforms and bottles for a water plant

A preform operation is an injection machine at US$30–75k plus a preform mould set that is often the same size of investment, and a blow moulder to turn preforms into bottles; we do not publish a stand-alone preform band because the mould decides the number. It pairs with the bottling scenario on the food and beverage map.

We do not publish a stand-alone preform band because a preform operation is three purchases pretending to be one: the injection machine, the preform mould, and the blow moulder that turns preforms into bottles. The mould is specified by neck finish, preform weight and cavity count, and cavity count is what sets output — so two quotations for “a preform machine” can differ by a factor of four in what they actually produce.

For a water plant the honest first question is whether to make preforms at all. Buying preforms and blowing on site is simpler, needs less capital and keeps the bottle design flexible; making preforms pays once volume is high and steady enough to keep the moulds busy, and it adds resin buying, drying and quality control to a business that was previously filling water.

Scenario 4: a bag-making shop

Basic bag-making machines start at US$8k and reach US$40k and above with full servo control; film supply, printing and the bag rule in force in the market decide the business. Plastic recycling and bag machine prices gives the tiers.

Bag making is the scenario most exposed to regulation. Several markets restrict thin single-use bags or require producer registration, and the rule in force decides both the gauge you can run and whether the product has a future in that country. Check the rule before the machine, because a servo machine bought for a banned gauge is not repurposed, it is resold.

Film supply and printing are what separate a shop from a converter. A basic machine makes a plain bag; a servo machine with print units makes a branded one, which is where the margin is and where the setup time, the ink and the plate costs arrive. The step is worth taking only if the customers who pay for print exist in the delivery radius.

Scenario 5: pipe and profile extrusion

A single-screw pipe line starts at US$20k; multi-layer co-extrusion runs to US$200k and above, and the die set and the downstream haul-off and cutter decide the output as much as the extruder. Pipe carries a product standard the buyer will test against, and the line must be specified to make it.

The extruder gets the headline and the downstream sets the output. A single-screw line will run happily faster than a haul-off and cutter can take away, so the die set, the calibration and cooling tank, and the cutter are what decide metres per hour and wall consistency. Buyers who specify only screw diameter end up with a line that is limited somewhere they did not quote.

Pipe carries a product standard in most markets, and that standard is tested on the pipe, not on the machine. Pressure class, wall thickness and marking have to be held batch after batch, which makes raw material consistency and process control part of the specification — and multi-layer co-extrusion a material-cost decision as much as a technical one.

Scenario 6: PET and film recycling

A PET recycling wash line is US$120–350k across the 300–1,000 kg per hour range, and the plant is a bale-supply business first: without collection contracts the line starves. Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda carry this row; wash water and effluent need a permitted route. The recycling and bag guide covers the wash line, pelletising and film options.

A recycling line is a collection business with machinery attached. The wash line is the visible capital; the survival factor is bale supply under contract, because a line sized for 1,000 kilograms an hour and fed 400 loses money on the difference every shift. Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda carry this row because the collection systems there are developed enough to make the contracts real.

Water and effluent are the second constraint, and they are usually under-planned. A wash line uses water in volume and returns it dirty; the treatment and recirculation scope belongs in the project from the start, both because the regulator will ask and because buying that water twice is a running cost nobody quotes.

Scenario 7: toilet paper converting and egg trays

A converting line, buying jumbo rolls and producing finished rolls, starts at US$10k and reaches the industrial class fully automatic; egg-tray forming machines from US$8k in the 1,000–3,000 pieces per hour class. Making the paper itself is a mill investment and the guide draws that boundary. Toilet paper and egg tray machine prices covers both.

Converting and making are two different industries that share a word. A converting line buys jumbo rolls and turns them into finished product; it is light, cheap to enter and limited by jumbo supply and delivery. Making the paper is a mill — pulping, a paper machine, energy and water at industrial scale — and it is not an extension of a converting business.

Egg trays sit in the same family and behave differently again: the feedstock is waste paper, the process is forming and drying, and the drying energy is the running cost that decides the margin. All three are sized to a local delivery radius, because finished rolls and moulded trays are bulky and cheap to make but expensive to move.

The map on one table

Bands are indicative equipment capex in USD, 2026, ex-China; they are the same bands our price guides and country pages publish. Machinery is priced in US dollars and the local-currency cost moves with the exchange rate.

What a CISH project includes

The same scope in every market: a feasibility call that starts from the part or the pack, a written USD budget for the whole project including moulds, cooling and material stock, a line commissioned to an agreed output on your material and moulds, operators trained during run-up, and documentation handed over.