The 75,000 tonnes capacity plant is being developed to specifically to recover films and flexible plastics from the grocery and retail sectors. After being sorted, the material is then reprocessed in mainland Europe.
The permit application explains that the site will operate under two phases, and will “predominantly accept and process plastic waste”.
Phase one will take place during 2021-2022 where the site will have a throughput of 30,000 tonnes per annum, averaging at 0-96 tonnes per day. Phase two will commence after the first year where the throughput would increase to 75,000 tonnes per annum, averaging at 0-240.4 tonnes per day.
Process
Using an automated process, the facility will recycle ‘back-of-store’ film and rigid plastics made from polymers such as PET, HDPE, LDPE, Eurokey said.
This material is brought onto site by Eurokey’s own vehicles.
Upon arrival, the waste vehicles will drive over the weighbridge located at the site entrance prior to delivering the waste to one of the six roller shutter doors at the loading dock on the eastern façade of the unit building.
The waste is then immediately sorted and segregated by hand and with the assistance of mobile plant and stored in one of the assigned storage bays prior to processing.
All processing of waste occurs indoors within the unit and consists of shredding of plastic to feed onto a series of conveyors and screens which will then be stored, the use of optical sorters for sortation, and balers for the baling of plastics. Once processed, the waste is stored either in a storage bay within the unit or in one of the five trailers in the external yard.
Supermarkets
While the supermarkets where the material is sourced from is commercially sensitive, retailers that Eurokey has worked with include Tesco.
The recycling of supermarket films has ramped up this year as supermarkets look to increase recycling. Sorting within the UK
In June, Sainsbury’s rolled out a flexible plastic recycling scheme to 520 stores nationwide (see letsrecycle.com story). Tesco followed suit in August, announcing the roll-out of soft plastic collection points at every one of its “large” stores in the UK (see letsrecycle.com story).
Sainsbury’s and Tesco launched their schemes after resources charity WRAP called on more supermarkets to collect all types of plastic bags and wrapping for sorting and recycling in May (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the technical packaging manager of Tesco told the LARAC Conference last month that in store collection of the material is “temporary” until offered at the kerbside (see letsrecycle.com story).
Eurokey
Based in Leicester and founded in 1995, Eurokey provides commodity trading and reprocessing services to commercial customers in the UK and internationally.
The company was acquired by the Reconomy Group for an undisclosed sum in March (see letsrecycle.com story).
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