UK firm set to build food-grade HDPE recycling plant

Waste Exchange Services (WES), a recycler based in the northeast of England, is building a dedicated food-grade bottle-to-bottle HDPE recycling plant at its Wilton site in Teesside.

The company claims the purpose-built 10,000tpa facility, featuring a Vacurema machine from Erema costing £1.25m, will be a world first.

James Donaldson, WES managing director, told PRW.com: “According to Erema, this is the first machine ordered specifically for food-grade HDPE.”

Erema’s Vacurema machine is used in food-grade PET recycling. Donaldson, who is a chemical engineer, said the Vacurema is central to the recycling process, with the vacuum it generates used to extract smells and impurities from the recyclate.

“Washing won’t remove pesticides. The Vacurema enables species to migrate out of the polymers,” said Donaldson.

WES is scheduled to take delivery of the 1,500kg/hr Vacurema in January or February of next year. The purchase is part of a £2m investment by parent company Greenstar in the new bottle-to-bottle facility.

Other new equipment for the plant includes a wet density separator, new electrical transformers, silos, an optical flake sorter and £50,000-worth of laboratory testing equipment.

Donaldson justifies the expenditure by outlining the WES ethos: “We see ourselves as manufacturers rather than recyclers, which means specifying the right kit to do the right job.”

He said his team at WES had redesigned the washing process, making the front-end of the process more efficient by using less water and energy.

Donaldson also said the plant will benefit from the collection capacity of the parent company.

The addition of the food-grade HDPE plant will add roughly 10 new jobs, said Donaldson, taking the company’s staff number to 75.