Europe’s largest plastic bottle recycler, Eco Plastics, today announced it was actively recruiting 30 new employees as it revealed the name of its new joint venture with Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE).
The state-of-the art
recycling facility based in Hemswell, Lincolnshire, said it has branded its venture with CCE
Continuum Recycling,
which will be housed in a new £15 million extension being built at the facility
. Eco Plastics is also
creating 30 new jobs, including posts in extrusion, process and quality control, to meet the needs of the new joint venture with CCE.
Eco Plastics and
CCE signed a deal in March that will see the plastics recycling facility re-process 140,000 tonnes of mixed plastic bottles per year to be re-used in new
Coca-Cola bottles. The deal has triggered a £24 million expansion of the facility.
"Today’s news is important because it demonstrates again our commitment and progress towards realising what will be a revolutionary project for the British
recycling and beverage industries," said Jonathan Short, managing director of Eco Plastics.
"I’m also very pleased to be able to announce that we have actively begun looking to hire people to work in the new facility. Not only are these skilled jobs, they’re skilled jobs in a rural area, where employment has been on the decline for some time."
Food-grade recycled plasticsThe Hemswell plant, which opened in 2010, currently employs over 130 people, with 110 of those employed on the processing site itself. One of the key attractions of the facility is its ability to recycle plastics that are 68 per cent less carbon-intensive than packaging made from virgin materials. Demand for
food-grade recycled plastics has increased in recent years as retailers and brand owners have sought to increase the recycled content in their products.
Eco Plastics said the new facility will increase the amount of food-grade PET (polyethylene terephthalate) currently produced in the UK to more than 75,000 tonnes a year, more than doubling the current total. This high-grade recycled plastic will then be used in Coca-Cola bottles, helping it to meet its target of including 25 per cent recycled PET in all its plastics packaging by 2012.
Important step
Describing the joint venture with Eco Plastics as "a really important step" in Coca-Cola’s journey to transform recycling in Great Britain, Nick Brown, commercial recycling manager at CCE, said: "We are delighted to see that work has started on the new facilities where Continuum Recycling will reprocess bottles to produce high quality material for reuse in our packaging. We are also really pleased to see the start of recruitment for the skilled roles which will make this new business a great success.
"Continuum Recycling is a great name for the business; it explains how effective recycling will lead to a continuous process of use, recycling and reuse for plastic bottles."
In its quest to develop a sustainable plastic bottle, earlier this month, CCE announced it was rolling out more than 200 million plant-based plastic bottles in the UK this year, under the brand name
PlantBottle.
Like this story? Please subscribe to our free weekly e-newsletter at the top of the page for more content like this.
Related content:
