BPI looks for more UK reprocessing of film

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, John Langlands, BPI chief executive, said: “Over the year we have seen a slight improvement in scrap availability. There is more film about but substantial volumes are still going abroad.”

The chief executive was speaking in the wake of the publication yesterday of the company's results for the first six months of 2007. BPI, which is Europe's largest producer of polyethylene (PE) films, sacks and bags reported sales of £226 million compared £230 million in the same period in 2006.

Profits were down by £0.4 million to £8.8 million compared to the first half of 2006.

Challenging

Commenting on the results, the company chairman, Cameron McLatchie, said: “This is a satisfactory outcome for a period of challenging market conditions and rising input costs. As indicated previously, trading conditions continue to be challenging. Much of the difficulty is the constant re-pricing of our products due to raw material price increases. We have had further increases at the start of the second half [of the 2007 financial year] but we are aware that raw material prices are flat in markets outside Western Europe and we anticipate that the rate and frequency of increases must soon abate.”

Looking at recycling in more detail, Mr Langlands said that investment at the company's Dumfries recycling plant in 2006 had led to higher production with material moving more effectively through the plant. And, within the next six months the company is expected to announce more about its plans for developing farm film recycling in South Wales.

Wales

In April 2007 BPI acquired the plastics washing and recycling equipment previously operated by Integrated Polymers and Evolution Polymers on the Capital Valley Industrial Estate in Rhymney, South Wales (see letsrecycle.com story).

The Integrated plant was initially installed in late 2005 to recycle agricultural, packaging and industrial waste plastics. The operation, said BPI, was not viable and the company went into liquidation in March this year.

BPI did not buy Integrated Polymers as a going-concern but acquired its equipment only. The company is expected by March 2008 to announce major investment to upgrade the plant to enable it to process waste farm plastics at “more viable outputs”.