The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) on October 16 announced £20-million ($25.8-million) investment to build four cutting edge recycling plants in the country. The four projects will also receive over £65 million ($83.9 million) funding from the industry. Combined, the investments represent the largest spending in plastic packaging recycling technologies ever made in the country.
The four projects include ReNew ELP’s Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor plant, Recycling Technologies’ chemical recycling plant, Poseidon Plastics’ hard-to-recycle PET chemical recycling plant, and a dual PET bottle and tray recycling facility developed by a collaboration of Veolia, Unilever, Charpak Ltd, and HSSMI. These facilities will have a combined facility to process nearly 130,000 tons/year of waste plastic.
According to ReNew, the company received a £4.42-million ($5.7 million) award to construct the world’s first commercial-scale plastic recycling facility that uses Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor (Cat-HTR™) technology. The plant will be built at Wilton, in Teesside, England starting in the first quarter of 2021. It will be able to convert 80,000 tons/year of waste plastic into oils and chemicals that can be used to produce waxes, naphtha, and a bitumen-like residue.
Recycling Technologies, Neste, and Unilever, are working together to advance chemical recycling technologies. The partnership received a £3.1-million ($4.0 million) award from UKRI to build a plant that can convert 7,000 tons/year of hard-to-recycle mixed plastic waste to produce 5,200 tons/year of hydrocarbon oil that can replace crude oil in plastics manufacturing.
Poseidon Plastics will construct a plant at Wilton, in Teesside, to chemically recycle 15,000 tons/year of waste PET. Waste management company Biffa has committed to invest £27.5 million ($35.5 million) in the Poseidon project and will provide feedstock to the plant starting in 2021. Dupont Teijin Films, O’Neills, Alpek, and GRN have also joined the project.
Veolia will develop a dual PET bottle and tray recycling facility at an existing Veolia complex that will be the first of its kind in the UK. The plant will use a closed-loop system to recycle 100% of clear rigid PET. The proposed facility is designed to recycle mixed PET packaging waste at a capacity 35,000 tons/year. Charpak Ltd, Unilever, and HSSMI have agreed to enter the partnership to develop the project.
