Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England: AWS Eco Plastics has opened its upgraded £14 million plastics reprocessing centre, said to be the largest in Europe. The facility now has the capacity to reprocess 100,000 tonnes of waste plastics annually and will be capable of producing food grade plastics from next year.
The Hemswell plant is able to process a wide range of plastics, through operations including delabelling, granulation and washing. New products produced from the output flakes include fleece jackets, piping and packaging.
A load of mixed plastic bottles
Further expansion is expected at Hemswell and the company plans to establish additional plants in Europe, including the UK.
The company desribes a typical input mixed plastic bottles specification for the plant as 40 - 50% natural HDPE (milk bottles), 35- 40% PET bottles, 5 - 10% coloured HDPE (detergent bottles), 5 - 10% other plastics and 0.5 - 1% discard materials (such as paper, cardboard, wood etc).
AWS chief executive Jonathan Short said:
"Our new plant with its considerable extra capacity can take plastics waste from local councils, supermarkets and other users and recycle it into flakes of the highest quality".
Speaking of the food standard packaging to be produced from the plant's output, Mr Short described it as a major breakthrough and particularly useful for supermarkets as they strive to raise their recyling levels.