Viridor is a recycling and waste management company in the United Kingdom that also generates renewable energy from its resources. It’s completing the UK’s biggest recycling plant, which will take recycled plastic (bottles, tubs, pots, and trays containing PET, HDPE, and PP) and turn it into a flake and pellet form to use as feedstock for new plastic products.
The facility will be powered by energy generated onsite using non-recyclable waste as fuel. The company has already struck deals to supply this sustainable plastic to goods company Procter & Gamble (P&G), as well as Unilever, packaging producer Klöckner Pentaplast, and chemicals firm INEOS.
Now Viridor is set to embark on another kind of recycling project agreement. It recently signed a memorandum of understanding with chemical recycling firm Plastic Energy regarding a facility that will take previously unrecyclable thin-film plastic and turn it into oils – or hydrocarbon products (TACOIL) – that can then be used to make virgin-quality plastics.
The managing director of Viridor, Phillip Piddington, said:
This project is further evidence of Viridor’s ongoing commitment to investment and innovation to push the boundaries of what is recycled and reprocessed in the United Kingdom. We are very proud to be working with Plastic Energy to develop a project which further demonstrates how all waste can be considered a resource and not rubbish and that collaboration is the key to achieving our green economy goals.
Once running, it will be capable of processing 30,000 tons of plastic – that would otherwise only have been feedstock for the waste-to-energy plant – with a new technology that makes it ‘infinitely recyclable.’ If the feasibility work finds the project to be worthwhile, the facility would be built and ready by the end of 2023. It would be ‘co-located’ with a Viridor waste-to-energy facility but owned, developed, and operated by Plastic Energy. This way, the recycling process of Plastic Energy’s facility could be powered using low-carbon energy from Viridor’s power plant.
The founder and chief executive officer of Plastic Energy, Carlos Monreal, said:
We are delighted to support the development of an integrated site with Viridor in the UK and provide a solution for plastics previously not recycled. Chemical recycling will support the government’s goal to move towards a circular economy and to increase recycling rates for plastics, effectively making plastic waste a valuable resource.
Many more agreements with Viridor are sure to follow as demand for recycled plastic rises thanks to legislation on minimum recycled content, and producers behave more responsibly about the products they put out. This is only the beginning!
