Veolia Environmental Services has today (November 1) opened its first waste plastics sorting facility in Rainham, Essex.
Also known as the Parrot POLY-mer separation facility, the 5 million plant is designed to separate up to nine different grades of plastics ranging from bottles, yoghurt tubs and food trays. It has the capacity to sort up to 50,000 tonnes of plastics per year.
The facility is intended to support local authorities across the UK in adopting mixed plastics collection services to residents.
Feedstock for the plant will come from nine materials recycling facilities operated by Veolia as well as third parties.
Gavin Graveson, executive director of Veolia ES, said This state-of-the-art facility has the capability to adapt to different plastics in the future and will begin to help end confusion for homeowners as to what they can and cannot recycle.
“We can now achieve a market leading end product for reprocessing materials back into plastic products, closing the loop and feeding the circular economy.
Sorting
At the Rainham site, Veolia previously operated a MRF and it has utilised the building for the plastics sorting facility, with construction taking six months.
A spokeswoman for Veolia said that the process and technology used at the plant was confidential, however, she said it was all high-tech end of plastics sorting equipment.
She added that most MRFs separate plastics and some carry out a crude separation and that Veolia has a plant which uses Magpie technology to separate the main polymers. However, she said that the new plant was a lot more advanced in being able to separate nine polymers.
Once separated, clear plastic bottles will be sent to Closed Loop Recycling and Veolia is building end markets for other materials, such as coloured bottles.
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When asked if the company is planning any other plastics recycling facilities in the UK, Veolia said that the Rainham plant was just the beginning.
The spokeswoman said: At the moment this is phase one so watch this space.
[…] In 2012, the company invested over £6.5m in a Plastics Recovery Facility in Rainham, which sorts different grades of plastics. HDPE from Rainham will be supplied to the new facility in Dagenham. (see letsrecycle.com story) […]