Significant Investment Enhances Plastic Recycling Capabilities
Newly installed equipment, much of which is unique to the UK, has turned WES Ltd.'s 24,000 tpa facility into one of the most advanced plastic recycling centres in Europe. The significant investment by parent company Greenstar has given WES Ltd. the capability to handle an even broader spread of post-consumer and industrial recyclable plastics.
WES has also placed an order – valued at Euro 2,000,000 – for a 1,500kg/hr Vacurema to convert the HDPE bottles, already being processed on the new equipment, into technical and bottle grade compounds. This food-grade, bottle-to-bottle recycled HDPE plant will be a world first and is due to be commissioned in February 2008.
The new equipment allows WES to address many of the hurdles it faces when extracting polypropylene and polyethylene from highly mixed and contaminated feedstock. The company will now be able to deal with much lower grade input streams and can now more effectively remove other materials and contaminants including polystyrene, nylon, soil, paper and glass. This enhanced capability also comes at a reduced environmental cost as the new process consumes much less energy and less water.
Both investments are part of Greenstar's continuing long-term commitment to providing advanced and widespread recycling capabilities to UK consumers and industry alike. "This investment puts us well on the way to our target of creating one of the UK's largest and most efficient plastic recycling facilities at WES," explains Ian Wakelin, Managing Director at Greenstar. "Indeed, it does not stop here, further investment will see us enhance the capabilities of this site even further and soon we will be in a position to redirect all plastic materials from our many material recycling facilities across the UK."
Commenting on the new capabilities his company is now able to offer, James Donaldson of WES explains: "We are in the business to solve customer problems and this new equipment gives us even greater capability. We can handle an enormously wide range of scrap materials including car shredder scrap, WEEE scrap and of course post-consumer waste such as plastic milk bottles. We are also undertaking many different trials on material combinations such as crates and inserts made from dissimilar materials and mixed plastic scrap combinations. The plant is also capable of forming the basis of a food-grade wash plant and further capital, in addition to the Vacurema, is being ordered to complete the process.
"I am a great believer that in order to compete, you must use the best possible equipment available and then run it 24/7 to get the best possible payback for you and your customers." Donaldson continues. "This investment by Greenstar will not only enable us to further demonstrate this approach, but also give us the capability to handle an even greater spread of waste streams."
Commenting on the additional plans to make food grade HDPE Donaldson elaborates: “We believe we are ready for the challenges that this project will bring. Taking bottles from the household waste stream back to food grade is the ultimate in recycling. We are investing in our staff, in quality and environmental systems to achieve a very technically complex project."