UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has poured £20 million into four cutting edge recycling plants as projects to reduce the amount of waste plastic dumped in landfills or incinerated and turn them into new, sustainable plastics receive a funding spike.
Photo by: Magda Ehlers/Pexels
These plants will increase the UK's available recycling capacity and expand the range of plastics being recycled, as opposed to them being dumped, burned or exported overseas for disposal.
The £20 million investment from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, along with over £65 million of industry investment represents the largest funding numbers the UK has made into plastic recycling technologies.
The technologies include a hydrothermal liquefication process to convert waste plastic into chemicals and oils for use in the manufacture of new plastic, a thermal cracking procedure to frasnform end-of-life plastics into hydrocarbon oil that can be used in plastic production, and a depolymerising facility that extracts colour from waste allowing for easier reuse.
The four projects are:
- Veolia in collaboration with Unilever, Charpak Ltd and HSSMI, which will develop the UK's first dual-ET bottle and tray recyclin facility, capable of recycling 100% of clear rigid PET in a closed-loop system.
- ReNew ELP proposes to set up a catalytic hydrothermic reactor in Wilton, Teeside, which, when up and running, could convert 20,000 tonnes of plastic per anum into oils and chemicals for use in virgin-grade plastics.
- Recycling Technologies has been awarded funding for a thermal cracking site that recycles plastic that cannot normally be reused by conventional methods.
- Poseidon Plastics aims to commercialise its novel enchanced recycling technology through the construction of a 15,000-tonne-per-annum recycling facility.
Recycling minister, Rebecca Pow said: "The government is committed to both clamping down on the unacceptable plastic waste that harms our government and ensuring more materials can be reused instead of being thrown away.
"By Investing in these truly ground-breaking technologies we will help to drive these effort even further, and I look forward to seeing them develope and deliver real results."
The four projects won their funding by submitting applications outlining prototypes for innovative new recycliung technology as a part of a UKRI competition launched last December.
The grants will allow them to make their theories a reality, bringing the plants online and scaling up their operations.
It forms a part of the UKRI's Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) challenge, which aims to increase the amount of recyclable plastic packaging and improve the UK's productivity in this sector.
Paul Davidson, challenge director of the SSPP challenge, said: "To help protect the planet from waste pollution it is critical that plastics are more readily recycled and sustainable. The plastic packaging industry is changing, to become more responsive to our environmentally-conscious concerns.
"The work of our four domnstator winners will go a long way to reinstate plastic as a sustainable packaging choice. In particular. our winners demonstrated they have a lifecycle approach to plastics packaging, thinking thruogh the use of a material from its raw state, through to its transport, its use my consumers and its disposal.
"This funding is just the start and we are planning further competitions in the near future."
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