Morrisons has opened a new facility to reprocess ‘hard to recycle’ soft plastic as it looks to develop a greater plastics recycling infrastructure in the UK.
The site in Fife will keep the material in a ‘closed loop’, saving it from being exported overseas.
Co-owned by the supermarket giant, the factility was constructed and will be operated by recycling plant specialists, Yes Recycling.
Other organisations including Nestlé and Zero Waste Scotland have also been involved in the development of the recycling plant which uses patented technology, developed over the past seven years.
This will turn plastic such as chocolate wrappers, crisp packets and food film into flakes, pellets and new Ecosheet which can be used widely in both the construction and agriculture industry.
As a result, it will recycle 15,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic packaging a year.
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The new facility will also create around 60 new jobs.
“We’ve done a significant amount of work to reduce our plastic use and now we want to help build a UK infrastructure to recycle the plastic that we may still need to use,” Morrisons procurement director, Jamie Winter said.
“By recycling these problematic plastics here in the UK we can give them a new life.”
Yes Recycling co-owner, Omer Kutluoglu said: “The UK is in desperate need of more plastic recycling capacity and, in particular, for the so-called ‘hard-to-recycle’ plastic waste such as flexible food packaging.”
He added that the recycling plant “is a blueprint for the future and will help to kick-start the UK’s plastics recycling industry. It will mean we can keep plastic in our own country’s ‘circular economy’ and out of our seas and oceans.”
Nestlé UK and Ireland head of packaging, Sokhna Gueye added: “We made a pre-investment of £1.65million into the facility as at Nestlé we are working hard towards our vision that none of our packaging, including plastics, ends up in landfill or as litter.
“It is fantastic to see our packaging such as KitKat wrappers or Purina pouches given a second life, thus contributing to building a circular economy for plastics.”
