Plastic bottle recycling plant opens in Lancashire

The multi-million pound facility operated and built by Intercontinental Recycling Ltd in Skelmersdale can take both mixed PET and HDPE plastic bottles from local authority collections.

The company said its “unique” plant could take in commingled plastic bottles from the Manchester and Merseyside areas.

At the facility, bottles are separated and sorted using “state-of-the-art” technology such as infra red detectors, before reprocessing. The PET will be made into flakes and the HDPE extruded into pellets, before being sent to end-markets where they could be made into products including plastic sheeting and pipes.

Intercontinental Recycling also has plans in the pipeline to turn PET from used drinks bottles back into new drinks bottles. It will be focussing on the food-grade packaging market for its plastics more closely when the Skelmersdale plant has reached full production.

The company was formed in 2005, and the West Lancashire plant, which was granted planning permission in 2006, is its first facility.

Around £500,000 of the plant's funding came from the Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank.

Demand

Intercontinental Recycling said there is a large demand for reprocessing in the UK and it is hoping to tap into the stream of plastic bottles collected in the UK currently being sent abroad. A survey carried out by Recoup in June estimated 70% of the UK's waste bottles are shipped to foreign countries for reprocessing (see letsrecycle.com story).

IRL's managing director Ravi Chanrai said: “Identifying the need for more effective plastics recycling in the UK, we have developed a unique facility to sort and reprocess a variety of plastic bottles into high quality end-use products.”

Iain Bomberg, business development manager at Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank said: “The Intercontinental Recycling plant is one of, if not the, most technologically advanced in the UK, and we are delighted to have been able support such an exciting project.”