Veolia will provide 35,000 tonnes of mixed PET and HDPE bottles every year to the facility being developed by Australian-owned firm Closed Loop London in Dagenham.
The £12m Closed Loop London facility, which has received financial support from WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, is expected to open in December 2007.
Veolia's materials sales manager, Kevin Bell, has welcomed the new contract as a benefit to the UK plastics recycling industry, as well as to his company.
Under the exclusive procurement agreement with Closed Loop London, Veolia will provide an undisclosed percentage of the 35,000 tonnes from its own collection yields, and will source the remainder from suppliers across the UK.
MRFs
This extra tonnage is likely to be from operators of materials recovery facilities (MRFs) or from kerbside collections, as long as the material is sorted and the bulk of contaminants removed.
Mr Bell told letsrecycle.com this will create new business relationships and an opportunity for Veolia to expand. It will also mean continuing efforts to boost household plastic bottles collection rates.
The 35,000 tonnes of plastic bottles required by Closed Loop London is equivalent to nearly a third of the total plastic bottles collected in the UK last year.
The figures revealed in the WRAP-commissioned UK Plastic Bottle Recycling Survey 2007 survey carried out by Recoup also found that only 25% of waste household plastic bottles in the UK were collected.
It also stated that around 26% of these were sold to the UK market with the rest exported, most likely to the Far East (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mr Bell explained that there is demand among the UK recycling market for a much greater supply of plastic bottles.
He said: “We have a number of MRFs and PFI contracts and we certainly have been proposing for some considerable time that we should recover more plastics. There's a hungry market out there.”
“Pivotal”
Mr Bell also said the new contract between Veolia and Closed Loop London could be “potentially pivotal” in terms of stemming the flow of exports to the Far East.
The Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations due to come into force on July 12, are expected to look more closely at the quality of exported material – requiring it to be sorted and free from contaminants – which is also likely to have an affect.
Mr Bell added: “My feeling is that the market in the Far East is becoming harder and harder. It's fickle and there is an environmental need for more reprocessing facilities in the UK.
“This new venture with Closed Loop London is with a totally different product and will encourage other countries to look at the UK as a potential reprocessing market and redress the balance of exports and imports”, he added.
Growth
Mr Bell expects this to be a move the industry will “embrace warmly” because plastics recycling in the UK is a young industry and unlike the paper and metal industries which are “reasonably mature”, there is still a lot of room for growth and to increase the capacity for recycling.
He also said that the contract would bring mutual benefits to Veolia and Closed Loop London.
“From our viewpoint, there is a recognition of the significance of the contract and the importance to us as a UK reprocessor and from Closed Loop's point of view, it is a recognition of our expertise,” he added.
Commissioning is due to start in January, with first tonnages accepted in September or October this year.
Subscribe for free