Viridor lands contract to retrofit UK MRF

Viridor, a United Kingdom-based recycling and waste management firm, has been awarded a 10-year contract to upgrade and operate a materials recovery facility (MRF) by the Plymouth (England) City Council.

Construction on the new MRF is expected to begin in May 2014 and be completed by April of 2015. The facility is expected to cost about £6 million (US$10.2 million). The upgraded MRF will be a retrofit of an existing facility in the Chelson Meadow section of Plymouth.

The MRF will be designed to sort curbside collected recyclables and enable Plymouth residents to include glass in their recycling bins. In addition to glass, the facility will handle all grades of paper, several types of plastic and aluminum and steel cans. The facility will have five near-infrared optical sorters to enable different types of plastic to be segregated with the goal of achieving “exceptionally high-quality output from the recycling process,” according to Viridor. A spokesperson for Viridor says Shropshire, England-based CD Engineering Ltd. is among the suppliers for the facility.

As the MRF undergoes construction, Viridor will begin its recycling program with Plymouth and ship the collected material to its MRF in Kent, England.

“Viridor is delighted to deliver projects such as this and invest in state-of-the-art sortation equipment on behalf of our local authority clients,” says Chris Jonas, Viridor’s head of strategic development. “This facility reflects Viridor’s focus on delivering quality recyclables and meeting the requirements of our material re-processers. This MRF site will be supported by the other specialist glass, paper and plastics recycling plants that we operate and are developing.”

Viridor currently operates 27 MRFs in the U.K.