CONTINUUMRECYCLING
The plant is said to be the largest of its kind in the world
Plastic fantastic
Lauren Cowan takes a trip to ECO Plastics’ Hemswell plant to explore the recycler’s venturewith Coca-Cola Enterprises
A collection of nondescript warehouses stands in a stark field in the heart of Lincolnshire farming country. On the approach the only indication of anything out of the ordinary in this otherwise tranquil setting is the faint sound of music, growing steadily louder as we continue along the dirt track.
B
y the time the coach comes to a halt outside the opening of the closest
building the tune is unmistakable, and as I step inside I immediately spot the source. If the presence of Coca- Cola’s all-signing-all-dancing Olympic van, pumping out Mark Ronson’s ‘Move to the Beat’
seems out of place in this very British industrial setting, it soon won’t. As of today (May 10th) Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) will be synonymous with British manufacturing. This is the Hemswell plant,
home to Continuum Recycling, the hotly anticipated joint venture between CCE and ECO Plastics, and it is here that history is being made.
CLEANING UP OUR ACT It is the industry’s worst kept secret that the majority of Britain’s recyclable material is sent thousands of miles abroad. Although there is no concrete data available on what percentage of our total collected recyclables are exported, a recent report by Recoup found
8 | FMCG News |
FMCGNews.co.uk
that of the 3000,00 tonnes aprox of plastic bottles collected in 2011, less than half was recycled and used in the UK. For a while now the Government has been looking into ways of making the country self-sufficient, but it is a vast leap from talks of intervention methods to actually implementing them and developing the level of infrastructure needed to manage the vast amount of recyclable materials produced in the UK domestically. With China - by far the largest importer of British recyclables - threatening to close its doors, Britain needs to learn how to clean up after itself, and fast. From what I have seen
Continuum Recycling provides a
strong model to work from. The venture will bring the recycling process full-circle, with used plastic packaging sorted and reprocessed domestically, before returning to GB shelves as part of another bottle within six weeks. It is a model that, with any luck, other companies will be inspired to emulate.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS The partnership says that the Continuum Recycling plant will more than double the amount of bottle-grade recycled plastic (rPET) previously created in Britain, and will allow CCE to meet its commitment to use 25 per cent rPET in all of is bottles by the end of 2012. The facility, which is capable of processing 140,000 tonnes of mixed plastic
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