Wrap grants Greenstar WES non-bottle recycling wish

Marcus Gover, Director for Market Development at Wrap said: “We were delighted with the quality of the bids for this grant. 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.”

“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 Greenstar WES will add with this new facility.”

The contract was finalised last month with Greenstar WES, which aims to deliver 20,000 tonnes of processing capacity by 2013. The material will be collected from households by local authorities.

James Donaldson, managing director of Greenstar WES, said: “We’re delighted to receive Wrap funding for our new facility, which will be based at our Redcar site and which will create a further 20 jobs. The grant recognises Greenstar WES’s outstanding track record in developing the plastic recycling technology and processes to maximise resource recovery and reuse.

“Our 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 domestic recycling collections.

“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.

[ Back ]