Meeting with the company's chief executive Omer Kutluoglu, Mr Clegg discussed the importance of “green job” creation and heard how the firm had encountered issues in securing funding to develop the plant.
Mr Clegg said the Liberal Democrats hoped to make it easier for the small-to-medium sized businesses to secure loans for developments from banks.
He said: “2K is exactly the sort of green, job-creating British business that we need to be helping during the recession. Sadly Omer's experience with the banks is part of a disturbing trend. The government is choking the recovery by allowing the banks that we all bailed out to withhold loans from viable firms.”
In the Liberal Democrats manifesto, which was launched on Wednesday, the party pledged a “huge increase” in the take-up of anaerobic digestion technology and outlined plans to move towards a ‘zero waste' society.
Mr Clegg's visit to the 2K facility comes in the wake of similar tours of the site undertaken by Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor Vince Cable and TV personality Esther Rantzen, who is standing as an independent candidate for the Luton South seat.
The waste and recycling sector has featured in the manifestos of all three major parties, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited paper firm Aylesford Newsprint on April 6 just hours after announcing the date of the General Election (see letsrecycle.com story).
The visit came the day before the televised debate between the leaders of the three main political parties, in which Mr Clegg was praised by the mainstream media for seizing the opportunity to place the Liberal Democrats on the same footing as the Conservatives and Labour.
However, there was no mention of environmental issues over the course of the 90-minute programme.
2K
Commenting on Mr Clegg's visit, Mr Kutluoglu claimed that 2K represented a “brilliant new generation of manufacturing company”.
He said: “Future governments need to support both the industry and the talent pool in terms of investment and financial and legislative support. We also need to develop a whole employment strategy for the green manufacturing sector.
“Our vision is to increase green jobs, stimulate green manufacturing and offer apprenticeships to help the next generation of world-beating British companies. Only then can we get ourselves out of this recession and start the new Post-Industrial Revolution.”
The Luton plant opened in June 2009 after 2K received £5 million in investment from Sevenoaks-based Foresight Group in January 2009, which is also set to help the firm open a further 11 facilities throughout the UK over the next five years (see letsrecycle.com story).
The plywood substitute, known as EcoSheets, is created through a powder impression moulding (PIM) system, which treats the mixed plastic at a low heat and low pressure. This effectively granulates the feedstock making it ready for reuse as ‘EcoSheets' and also allows 2K to reprocess material which has high contamination levels.
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