Plastics recycling expected to rise above local authority cuts

AWS Eco Plastics took a hard look at supply and demand ahead of the recent opening of its new recycling plant in Hemswell, Lincolnshire. Said md Jonathan Short: "Some 90% of homes in the UK are now served by kerbside collections, but there are still a lot of mixed plastic bottles that are not being collected."

He said potential was waiting to be tapped. "It's an easy win, given that the infrastructure is already there. There would be no increased costs in, say, doubling collection rates."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) agreed that local authority provision should not be affected. A spokesman said: "The landfill tax has proved to be a very effective mechanism for driving waste away from landfill, and has underpinned the development of alternative recycling and recovery infrastructure."

Meanwhile, the DEFRA-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme is testing which consumer messages best maximise bottle capture in the domestic waste stream, and will arm local authorities with the results.

Short at AWS cited other factors: "Over the last two-to-three years, commodity prices have increased, while materials recovery facility gate fees are probably coming down."

The new £17M AWS facility replaces one that was badly damaged by fire in 2009. Short said: "We were able to design a more logical process and plan the building around it, with full use of height and so of gravity as well as power." He reported that input capacity had increased from just 25,000t/year in 2006 to 100,000t/year in 2010, with potential for further expansion to 140,000 or even 180,000t/year.

Polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene make up to 75% of plastics waste, said Short. But with 17 polymer and optical sorting units and 11 potential streams, the plant can cope with wider plastics separation.