UK firm unveils Europe's largest plastic bottle recycling plant

The UK's recycling capacity received a major boost this week after Newcastle-based AWS Eco Plastics announced it had successfully completed a £14m upgrade to its recycling facility in Hemswell, Lincolnshire, creating what it claims is the largest plastic bottle recycling plant in Europe.

The company said the upgrade, which follows the successful raising earlier this year of £6m in funding from the Sustainable Technology Fund, has quadrupled the capacity of the plant to 15 tonnes of plastic waste every hour, or 100,000 tonnes annually.

AWS chief executive Jonathan Short said the new plant would ensure that plastic waste that would otherwise have been exported to countries such as China for recycling can now be processed in the UK.

"Mixed plastics represent at least seven per cent of the domestic waste stream by weight with approximately 86 kilos thrown out per household per year in the UK," he said. "Our new plant's considerable extra capacity can take plastic waste from local councils, supermarkets and other users of plastic and recycle it into flakes of the highest quality for use in general manufacturing and plastic bags."

The company said it was also planning to add a new processing line next year which would be capable of producing recycled plastic that meets standards for food packaging.

Short explained that there was a significant gap in the market for a large-scale UK-based recycler capable of providing recycled plastics that could be used to package food.

"There is nobody in the UK recycling industry making food-grade plastics in any quantity, which represents a huge opportunity for us," he said, adding that the company was expecting to see considerable interest from supermarkets in the new processing line.

The news comes just a week after rival recycling firm Closed Loop Recycling announced it too was to bolster capacity after receiving planning permission for a new £12m recycling plant in North Wales capable of processing 50,000 tonnes of plastic bottles a year.