We may just have met the future saviour of plastic packaging for food, Adrian Haworth. For those of you who have not heard of Adrian, his role is Marketing Director of Recycling Technologies Ltd and having spent 30 years with the mighty GE in both Europe and Russia he is the individual now responsible for promoting Recycling Technologies: the company which is actually converting waste plastic back into oil.
The concept behind the technology is really quite simple, namely they take any waste mixed plastics which can’t be recycled by conventional means, then by a process of pyrolysis, recycle the plastic back to a form of oil which they call Plaxx. This is the company’s trade name for the resultant oil produced.
The Plaxx oil can then be used again, either for feedstock, for plastic, engine fuel or wax. All of which are high value oil based products. In effect, this system enables us to fulfil the requirements of a 100 percent circular economy solution for disposal of waste plastic. This is the “Holy Grail” much desired by the environmentalists, the politicians and all of us in the industry. The use of this technology in this way has several outstanding benefits.
1. It takes the plastic waste which otherwise could not be recycled and thus would be incinerated or go to landfill
2. It therefore gets the benefits of an input price as any charge below the cost of landfill tax will attract plastic waste
3. The recycled oil produced is a premium product with a high value
4. Pyrolysis is a well-established technology currently used for producing charcoal or tar
5. The proposed recycling plant is built offsite, delivered in kit form and can then be erected in 4 days
Plants will be erected alongside existing waste recycling facilities and as a consequence, no costs are incurred in the collection, baling and/or transporting of the plastic waste.
A plant is budgeted to cost just £3 million, with £1 million PA of operating costs. One plant will convert 7,000 TPA of dry plastic waste into oil and the first scaled up plant will be operational shortly at Binn Farm Eco Park in Scotland. #Don’tHatePlastic
If you would like more detail of the process or indeed an in house presentation please contact barry@nationalflexible.net or follow Barry on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/barry-twigg-3a440b53/
