
Photo courtesy of Fiberight and Wilkinson PR Ltd.
Fiberight Ltd., United Kingdom, is working with four partners on the Uncaptured Unrecycled Plastics (UP) project, designed to divert and reprocess difficult-to-recycle plastic scrap.
The UP effort has secured 4.2million pounds sterling ($5 million) in co-funding from Innovate UK’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge (SSPPC). Fiberight says it also has secured about $120,000 in funding from the Welsh government toward a plastics R&D project aiming to commercialize what Fiberight calls a “near-to-market application for flexible plastics.”
The UP project has been designed to establish and operate a commercial-scale demonstration facility processing postconsumer plastic packaging from mixed waste streams, such as reject material from material recovery facilities (MRFs), to create a new supply of recycled plastics to be used in the economy.
The Swansea facility will use feedstock from local MRFs, initially contaminated MRF films and contaminated rigid plastics, before moving up to processing MRF reject materials. The capacity of the facility will be up to 60,000 metric tons per year.
Project partners include U.K.-based technology provider Impact Recycling, whose BOSS polymer separation systems will be integrated with Fiberight’s HydraCycle technology to “showcase a holistic water-based separation process for the recovery and recycling of different plastic types and packaging formats.”
U.K.-based rigid plastic reprocessor Moulding Solutions will be an offtake partner for recycling the recovered rigid plastics. The company will use plastics recovered from the Swansea facility to boost its current supply for the production of extruded pellets for use by U.K. manufacturers of products such as utility pipes, wheeled carts and packaging.
U.K.-based Ranela Recycling Services, involved in flexible plastic recycling, will advise on product quality, recycling equipment and routes to market for finished flexible or film-based plastics products, Fiberight says.
The fourth partner, Switzerland-based ProAmpac, a provider of flexible packaging, will provide technical advice and support to the project.
In terms of end markets and applications for the recycled materials, multiple U.K. sectors will be targeted, including nonfood contact packaging, heavy gauge refuse sacks, pipes and buckets, lumber and roadside furniture.
“We are delighted to offer funding to Fiberight and the project partners,” says Paul Davidson of Innovate UK. “Capturing and recycling plastic packaging that otherwise would be sent for incineration as part of a MRF reject stream will help the U.K. to increase its plastic recycling rate and reduce the environmental impacts associated with disposal. This large-scale demonstration will prove if this technology is capable of achieving that and at commercial scale.”
Nick Thompson, co-founder and managing director of Fiberight, adds, “The UP project will showcase the full value chain collaborating to establish a new way of recycling plastic packaging in the U.K., capturing the lost resources and realizing significant environmental benefits.”
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