United Kingdom | The UK Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) confirms that plastic recycling company WES Greenstar will add 20,000 tonnes per year of re-processing capacity for non-bottle household plastic packaging such as margarine tubs, yoghurt pots and meat trays, following the capital grant competition launched in June 2009.
Research launched last summer demonstrated the commercial and technical viability of recycling and re-processing non-bottle household plastic packaging, in addition to the environmental benefits.
Marcus Gover, Director for Market Development at WRAP says: 'Mixed plastic packaging is an extremely visible waste stream, and householders increasingly want it to be recycled in the same way as other packaging materials such as glass, paper, plastic bottles and cans, which are widely recycled.'
According to Mr Gover, it has a value as a recycled material and it does not make economic or environmental sense to dispose of it in landfill. 'We’re looking forward to the extra domestic capacity WES Greenstar will add with this new facility,' he adds.
The contract was finalised earlier in January with WES Greenstar which aims to deliver 20,000 tonnes of processing capacity by 2013. The material will be collected from households by the local authorities in the surrounding region. WRAP hopes other facilities to recycle more household plastic packaging in other local authority areas will be encouraged by the new WES facility.
James Donaldson, founder and managing director of Queen’s award-winning Greenstar WES, said 'The grant recognises Greenstar WES’s outstanding track record in developing the plastic recycling technology and processes to maximise resource recovery and reuse.
According to WES, the new mixed plastics plant will be able to process natural and mixed colour polypropylene, PE and PET in addition to PVC and PS, all sourced from UK recycling collections.
James Donaldson: 'Our annual processing of 20,000 tonnes of mixed rigid plastic packaging will primarily be sold to customers with higher value industrial applications.'
Although more than 216,000 tonnes of plastic bottles are collected for recycling in the UK, the recycling of non-bottle household plastic packaging is still limited. By supporting this new facility WRAP hopes to demonstrate the business case for increasing mixed plastics recycling in the UK and so attract further investment in capacity.
Acknowledgement
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