Integrated Polymers, based at Capital Valley industrial park in Rhymney, is currently using a “multi-million pound investment” to put in place new machinery to deal more efficiently with farm plastic and process mixed plastic from households at its existing site.
At the moment, the plant granulates farm waste plastic and semi-industrial plastic waste, which is collected by local company Evans Logistics. The granules are passed on to outside companies to remake into farm plastic packaging.
The new equipment at the plant, made by Italian company PRT, is initially to deal more efficiently with waste farm plastic – enabling the company to wash the plastic industrially and carry out further processing.
Domestic
However, Integrated Polymers says once the new equipment is fully operational, which is planned for this summer, it will then look to tackle the domestic waste stream.
Peter Melling, spokesman for the company, explained the plans: “We have plenty of space here, so once the equipment has proved its operational abilities, we can scale up the plant accordingly and we'll deal aggressively with the domestic plastic problem.”
Integrated Polymers believes it will not only be able to reprocess mixed plastic bottles, but other plastics, such as food containers too.
All domestic plastic waste would be granulated and sold to companies based in the UK to make a variety of new products, such as bollards, according to Mr Melling.
Costs
Mr Melling said a waste management or collection company could typically charge between 70-90 a tonne for picking up farm plastic and would pay about 20-35 a tonne gate fee when delivering waste to Integrated Polymers.
The investment is partly from a Welsh Development Agency grant and the remainder from private investment. It comes ahead of regulations which will ban farmers from burning or burying their waste plastic as of June 1 this year, pushing farmers to find alternate routes for the disposal of their plastic.
Integrated Polymers said it is currently in discussions with farmers' advisory groups and a handful of companies that would possibly be able to collect farm plastics and deliver them to Integrated Polymers.
The company is an associated business of consultancy Evolution Projects UK Ltd and Evolution Polymers Ltd, which buys and sells waste polymers.
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