Greenback site receives UK government ministry visit

A facility in Heanor, England, that uses chemical recycling technique to recycle plastic has been visited by Mary Creagh, a member of the parliament of the United Kingdom who also serves as the nation’s Nature and Circular Economy Minister.

The facility, which converts discarded flexible packaging into recycled-content plastic resins, is operated by U.K.-based technology vendor Greenback Recycling Technologies and Switzerland-based packaging producer Amcor.

The two companies say the mid-December 2025 visit by Creagh was conducted in part “for the official commissioning of the first U.K. deployment of Greenback’s Enval advanced recycling module.”

Greenback and Amcor say her visit highlighted the importance of the work on circular plastics being done by both Amcor and Greenback in association with the Singapore-based Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) to conduct the trial to convert postconsumer flexible packaging plastic into food-grade recycled-content plastics feedstock.

The chemical recycling process being tested at the Heanor facility is being evaluated by the traceability platform London-based eco2Veritas, which captures data from the receipt of material through to the production of pyrolytic oil, according to Greenback.

The resulting oil “carries a digital certificate of provenance, providing crucial data for mass-balance allocation as the oil is then converted into recycled plastics,” adds the company.

Greenback says its collaboration with Amcor aims to showcase the potential for co-locating modular Enval recycling units within existing industrial infrastructure.

The company says its Heanor site already plays a role in converting postconsumer and industrial flexible plastic scrap, via mechanical recycling, into recycled-content polymers. Those polymers are used in Amcor flexible packaging applications.

“This is an exciting example of how shared action between government and the private sector can tackle the world’s plastic waste mountain through innovation, infrastructure investment and collaboration,” says Creagh. “This commissioning reflects the government’s broader ambition to build a resilient, circular economy by reusing the plastics [that] already exist.”

“This commissioning demonstrated how collaboration and innovation can accelerate scalable circular solutions,” says Philippe G. von Stauffenberg, founder and CEO of Greenback. “We are proud to work with Amcor and government stakeholders to scale technologies that keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment. We also want to thank the AEPW for their support in reaching this milestone.”

Comments Andrew Green, a vice president with Amcor Flexibles, “The trial of this pioneering technology at Heanor reinforces our commitment to improving circularity for flexible packaging and supporting U.K. policy objectives for a more sustainable future.”