ECO Plastics Finds Investors

ECO Plastics Ltd.  has found several investors for its campaign to fund an expansion of its recycling facilities at Helmswell in Lincolnshire, U.K., including Ludgate Environmental Fund Ltd. (LEF), and Coca Cola Enterprises (CCE).

LEF, a U.K. investment firm that targets environmental companies, has invested $8 million in ECO Plastics Ltd., the U.K.-based plastic bottle recycling company. The goal of ECO Plastics’ $39 million expansion is to allow the company to more than double the production of food-grade recycled material for soft drinks packaging in Great Britain. ECO Plastics also has received $8 million from Coca Cola Enterprises (CCE) through a joint venture, and has had the rest of the financing come from the U.K.-based merchant banking firm Close Brothers.

The funds will support the construction and operation of an expansion to ECO Plastics' existing plastics processing plant, as well as the investment required to build and operate the joint venture business that will supply food grade recycled material (rPET) to CCE for the next ten years.The goal of the joint venture is to supply CCE with enough rPET to achieve the beverage firm’s 25 percent rPET in all its plastic packaging in Great Britain by 2012.

ECO Plastics says the expansion, which secured planning approval in May 2011, will increase overall processing capacity at the plant from 100,000 metric tons per year to 140,000 metric tons of plastic bottles per year, close to half the total collected in the U.K. last year. The expanded facility is expected to be fully operational by 2012.

"We will recycle used British packaging in Lincolnshire, for re-use in packaging sold in Britain,” Peter Gangsted, ECO Plastics’ chairman, says, “This represents an important milestone for both the drinks manufacturing industry and the recycling industry. We are delighted that the markets have recognized the value of this model. The U.K. sustainable packaging market has huge growth potential and our expansion will make ECO Plastics a world leader."