Closed Loop Recycling to set up its second plant in Wales

Closed Loop Recycling recently announced that it has chosen North Wales as the location for its second plastic recycling plant. The project has received private equity funding from Foresight Group -- an alternative asset manager, and public sector funding from the Welsh Assembly.

The innovative plastic recycling facility will take 50,000 tons of water, milk and other soft drinks bottles which will be processed back into new food packaging. This waste might otherwise be exported or sent to landfill.

The second food-grade plastic recycling plant will create 50 jobs and will take significant volumes of its plastic from Wales and the North West, the company said.

Major brands such as Solo Cup Europe, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Nampak and Logoplaste have already committed to buying the food-grade plastic output from the second plant. Veolia Environmental Services is continuing its long-term support for Closed Loop Recycling at Dagenham by supplying the plant with the recycled plastic bottles to feed the facility.

According to a recent study, the total number of plastic bottles entering the UK waste stream is approximately 525,000 tons a year -- equivalent to an estimated 13 billion bottles. The study, in 2007, found that some 4.5 billion bottles were being recycled, with an estimated 8 billion bottles being exported or sent to landfill sites.