Graham Davy, managing director of Sims, said: “As yet we are undecided on the appropriate location for the site, but we have narrowed our choice to two facilities.”
Spokesman Myles Pilkington said the decision on location would be made “as soon as possible”. He said the decision to open another plant so soon after the first, near Newport, Wales, was partly down to the glut of fridges coming from the UK fridge mountain.
“It's partly because the plant itself has been so successful, but also because demand is so high,” Mr Pilkington explained.
According to Sims, the plant will use cutting edge technology that will exceed the UK legal requirements for the safe disposal of ozone depleting substances. The combination of both plants will allow the company to process more than 600,000 domestic and commercial fridges each year.
Mr Davy said: “It is important to stress that our investment is not speculative – Sims has the arisings and it has the stored volume.”
Tyres
Sims recently acquired the assets of UK recycling company NECP and it has used these as a basis for research into the recovery of materials from WEEE. In particular, it has invested in upgrading a tyre granulating plant formerly run by NECP.
The plant, based in Denton, Manchester, will have the capacity to process 30,000 tonnes of waste tyres per year by the time it opens in late 2003. The product will be used in the aggregates industry.
From July 2003, landfilling whole tyres will be banned, and landfilling shredded tyres will be banned from July 2006. Sims commented: “Tyre waste is estimate to exceed current UK capacity for processing by up to 140,000 tonnes per annum. By 2006 this could amount to over 500,000 tonnes of surplus post-consumer tyres.”
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