Closed Loop London launches << Back to Main News Page Added: Monday, 15 September 2008 The UK ’s first combined PET and HDPE food grade recycling plant officially launched in east London in June – allowing plastic food and drinks packaging to be recycled back into plastic food and drink packaging. Closed Loop Recycling unveiled a £12 million facility capable of reprocessing 35,000 tonnes of plastic bottles – just under a billion bottles - each year. This is equivalent to around 20% of the plastic bottles currently collected for recycling in the UK. The aim of the project is to create a ‘closed loop’ so that material is used and recycled in the UK . Closed Loop have negotiated a contract with Veolia Environmental Services to supply the PET and HDPE bottles from kerbside collections and bring banks. Coca-Cola Enterprises, Marks and Spencer, Nampak Plastics Europe and Solo Cup Europe are among the companies who have already signed up to buy the recycled food grade material from the plant. The PET bottles will be recycled using patented technology developed by US firm United Resource Recovery Corporation (URRC) to sort, granulate and super-clean the recycled plastic bottles to produce a high quality raw material that has been tested extensively and is widely used in food grade applications in both the US and Europe. Meanwhile, the HDPE bottles will be recycled using new technology developed and funded by WRAP in collaboration with Marks & Spencer, Nampak and Dairy Crest. The Dagenham site is also able to sort and separate mixed plastic bottles and reprocess clear and light blue PET and uncoloured HDPE. The recycled plastic is unlikely to cost more than virgin material. The plant will not be fully operational until later this year, but is now under commissioning with bottles being processed and food grade production expected in September. Funding for the plant has come from investment firm Foresight Group, Closed Loop Environmental Solutions, and grants from WRAP and the London Development Agency. Recoup welcome the new plant, with senior project manager Stuart Foster commenting: “Developing food grade recycling in the UK is a necessary and welcome move for plastic bottle recycling. There is increasing demand from manufacturers and retailers to try and incorporate recycled content into the packages that they put on the supermarket shelves and sell to the consumers. To meet this demand and supply the recycled material from UK reprocessors, through food grade facilities like Closed Loop London , will be a big win for UK plastic recycling. “Essentially the production of food grade material allows us to realise complete closed loop recycling – turning an old bottle into a new one. Because you are achieving food grade standards it is very likely to add value to the recycled bottles, as a higher grade output is produced. In the current climate where landfill costs, oil prices and virgin plastic prices are increasing, anything we can do to encourage this resource not to be landfilled but to be recycled into high value applications must be the way forward.“ Closed Loop Recycling have already confirmed that five similar plants are planned for the UK , although the locations have not yet been revealed. However, the second plant will be even bigger than the first – taking in 50,000 tonnes of bottles each year (1.25 billion bottles) – and will be located close to a large conurbation - probably somewhere in the north. For more information about Closed Loop London, go to http://www.closedlooprecycling.co.uk