The Nottinghamshire-based company, which is already responsible for about 12% of the recycled glass market in the UK, diversified into collecting plastic bottles following requests from councils.
Simon Etches, administrative executive at Midland Glass, said: “We felt that there was a niche in the market and also we felt that this material wasn't being recycled to its full potential. There was a need for a processor that offered local authorities and waste management companies a contract that fits their needs.”
The company is collecting plastic bottles from local authorities using its specially designed “Recresco” bring banks, which are emptied using vacuum suction. Midland Glass already has collection contracts with councils in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Ashfield and Staffordshire.
The new processing plant in Nottinghamshire cleans the plastic bottles before they are baled ready for sale to the best bidder or export abroad.
Mr Etches explained: “The plant enables us to sort the materials from the rubbish, reducing the material. We also have the capacity to sort individual polymers but at the moment we don't. At the moment it can probably do between 12 and 16 tonnes a week and go up to about 20 to 25. We are also looking to upgrade it further.”
Expansion of the plastic bottles collection service will enable Midland Glass to make the most of the new plant's automatic sorting facility.
Contracts director Tim Gent said: “We would like to roll out our service to more local authorities and when we have enough tonnage we will use the auto sort system to sort the plastics into their polymers.”
Post-consumer plastics collectors in the UK are seeing a lot of demand from the Far East for plastic bottles at the moment, although prices are not high (see letsrecycle.com story). Mr Gent said that more financial support is needed for the recycling of plastic bottles as opposed to the cheaper commercial plastics recycling. The price of packaging waste recovery notes (PRNs) in the plastics sector, now as low as 4 a tonne, is not providing enough incentive for the recycling of plastic bottles, he said.
“Something is going to have to be done to pay for plastic bottle recycling. There should be separate PRNs for post consumer plastics and for film PRNs,” he said.
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