AWS Eco Plastics’ new plastic bottle sorting plant in the UK has reopened 14 months after being devastated by a fire.
The site will be able to process more than 100,000 tonnes of waste plastics, or 2,000,000,000 bottles a year, making the Hemswell factory ‘the largest and most sophisticated in Europe’, says the company.
Valued at over £17 million, the plant features state-of-the-art equipment by Stadler, TITECH and Herbold, designed to process diverse feedstocks. An ‘industry leading’ 17 polymer and optical sorters gives the plant a flexible output of 11 different streams of plastic, for ‘virtually zero-waste’.
The business expects to increase processing capacity at the site to 140,000 tonnes by mid 2011. The UK is projected to recycle 300,000 tonnes of plastic bottles/year by the end of 2010, which means Hemswell would be responsible for almost 50% of the national total. The company owns land surrounding the site for potential further expansion.
“There is huge potential in the UK market and this can only grow as the demand for low-carbon food and drink packaging increases. This is a growth industry in which the UK has the potential to be a world-leader,” says Jonathan Short, Managing Director of AWS Eco Plastics.
