Gwynedd council in North Wales has signed a deal to supply mixed plastic material directly to plastics recycling firm ECO Plastics, in what has been described as a first of its kind deal for the company.
As part of the ‘long-term’ partnership – the length of which has not been disclosed – ECO Plastics will purchase mixed plastics which have been collected from households in the borough and sorted at Gwynedds in-house, 120,000 tonnes per year capacity materials recycling facility (MRF) at Caernarfon.
ECO Plastics will process the material at its Hemswell bottle recycling facility in Lincolnshire, which has been partially funded by Coca Cola Enterprises, and currently has the capacity to process 150,000 tonnes of plastics per year.
The deal with Gwynedd comes after ECO Plastics signed a 12-month contract with waste management firm Viridor for the supply of up to 10,000 tonnes of plastic bottles throughout 2014.
The company is seeking to secure more of its feedstock through longer term partnerships, and it is keen to purchase less material from the spot market in future. ECO Plastics plans to source as much as 70% of its feedstock through long-term agreements by the end of 2014.
Collection
Plastic bottles are collected from the kerbside by Gwynedd council alongside including paper, metal and glass, as part of a weekly blue box service. The material is then sent to the Caernarfon MRF for sorting.
The council says that providing all of the material to ECO Plastics, rather than selling through waste management firms, will allow it to have greater control of the end destinations of the material it collects.
Commenting on the deal, Jonathan Short, deputy chairman of ECO Plastics, said: Gwynedd initially contacted us because of concerns around the final destination of their waste materials. After two members of our SQA team visited Caernarfon to review their process, they decided to move away from segregating different polymers and instead provide a mixed plastics bale direct.
By eliminating several superfluous sorts, it has ensured that more quality material will be extracted from the process and less material is sent for disposal, saving residents money in the process.
Mr Short added that he expected other local authorities to follow Gwynedds example and seek to set up direct supply contracts with reprocessing firms.
Steffan Jones, senior waste and commissioning manager at Gwynedd council, added that the new arrangement would help to ensure that the council complies with the End Destinations of Recycling Charter, a voluntary charter which sees councils provide residents with information about where material is processed, to which Gwynedd is a signatory.
He said: By processing the material ourselves rather than through a waste management company, this deal creates a new revenue stream from what was previously a cost not just financially, but also environmentally. The income from our contract with ECO Plastics, savings in waste management company fees and landfill tax, increase in recycling rates and ability to comply with the End Destinations Charters presents a genuine win-win-win scenario for the residents of Gwynedd.
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