UK food grade PET/HDPE recycling plant launched

The UK’s first combined PET and HDPE food grade recycling plant was officially launched yesterday in Dagenham, East London, by Closed Loop Recycling .

The £13m ( ?16.4m) facility will take in 35,000tpa of waste – or just under a billion bottles – and produce 11,000tpa of foodgrade PE flake plus 6,000tpa of food grade HDPE pellet.

Once up and running, it will produce a further 1,000tpa each of non-food grade PE flake and HDPE. Closed Loop said that over 65% of output has already been sold.

The aim of the project is to create a “closed loop” so that material is used and recycled in the UK. Closed Loop has negotiated a contract with waste management firm Veolia Environmental Services to provide the PET and HDPE bottles.

The first companies signed up to buy the recycled food grade material from Dagenham include: Coca-Cola Enterprises, Marks & Spencer, Nampak Plastics Europe and Solo Cup (Europe).

Dr Helene Roberts, head of food packaging at Marks & Spencers, said at the opening, that plastics were “an incredibly important material to us and the industry”.

She added that their suppliers were “confused” by plastics and felt that “some materials were viewed as more environmental than others” and that “plastics wasn’t one of them”.

But she said recycling facilities such as the Dagenham facility were starting to change that.

The md of Closed Loop in the UK, Chris Dow, at the launch told PRW.com: “This plant has taken plastics into the requirements for being one of the most environmental packaging forms.”

The plant is due to be producing non-food grade material by the end of July. Once a testing process has been complete it is expected to start producing food grade material by the early autumn.

The plant has been funded by private equity, with the majority of funding coming from the Foresight Group with seed funding from parent company Closed Loop Environmental Solutions in Australia. The Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) has provided support and funding grants.

The facility will create 55 jobs and has solar panels and wind turbines on the roof. A combined heat and power (CHP) unit is planned to produce up to 10% of the plant’s energy.