Delleve Plastics hopes to win funding from WRAP’s “processing infrastructure to deliver plastic bottles from the waste stream competition grant” for which tenders were invited earlier this year. WRAP’s Liz Goodwin says the aim of the competition is the “sorting and reprocessing of plastic bottles, with 20,000 having to be diverted away from the municipal waste stream.” How this is done, she said, is down to the organisation bidding.
Delleve hopes to open the new factory near St Helens, close to the location of the former Reprise plant in Bold. It aims to take in waste HDPE as used in milk bottles and PET as used in vegetable oil bottles, collected from the municipal waste stream to recycled into drainage components and piping.
Delleve will take in waste plastics collected from householders in nearby Manchester and Liverpool, but the project, says Delleve is dependent upon the
WRAP decision. According to WRAP, there are no preferred bidders for any forthcoming plastics grant tenders happening in the next few weeks, however, an appointment is expected to come next month.
Residents within the two cities are said to generate around 60,000 tonnes of waste plastics a year. The factory aims to recycle the required 20,000 tonnes of waste plastics within its first five-years of operation.
It is understood that Delleve is essentially relying on winning the grant to help it pay for some of the necessary recycling equipment it has already purchased.
Collection
Mr Clark said Delleve plans to work with local authorities in order to set up its own franchise partners for the collection of plastics from the domestic waste stream. Delleve proposes to employ individuals to use Delleve’s own vehicles to pick up waste plastics in a separate collection at the same time as recyclable kerbside collection days, but which are placed in separate plastic bags. Individuals with these collection franchises will then drop the plastics off at central collection depot, where they will be paid by both the local authority and Delleve.
Bradford-based plastic recyclers Pennine Fibres, known for reprocessing and recycling PET into items such as mattresses and bedding said it would increase the amount of PET which it recycles if more feedstock becomes available. Production Director at Pennine Fibres, Philip Leng said: “We will buy this additional material from Delleve who will collect it, but this will all depend upon whether they get the grant from WRAP or not.”
Local authorities will be expected to play a part in paying for the plastics collected as according to Delleve, “it helps them meet with their compulsory collection targets, especially as in the areas of Liverpool and Manchester.
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