The UK’s capacity to reprocess rigid mixed plastics was increased (nearly) exponentially earlier this year with the opening of Biffa Polymer’s Redcar facility. Will Simpson learns what happens to the pots, tubs and trays that wind up there

As we have seen elsewhere in this issue, mixed plastics recycling has been and continues to be a thorny issue in the UK. It’s the most common item in our bins that is still largely thrown away with just 26 per cent being collected from UK households in 2009/10. Partly this has been because the range of different polymers represented in your average mixed plastic bale makes recycling a more difficult process than with plastic bottles, and partly because of the absence of any kind of specialised sorting and reprocessing structure in the UK. 

Gradually though, that infrastructure is falling into place. A major step forward – at least as far as the rigid fraction if not the film is concerned – was the opening in March 2011 of a Biffa Polymers facility in Redcar on Teeside that can sort, wash and reprocess rigid mixed plastic material. Jonathan Donohue, Commercial Manager of Biffa Polymers, outlines the main reasons for opening the plant, the first of its kind in the UK: “Plastic bottle recycling is well catered for in the UK either by ourselves or by other contractors. But we also want to capture the pots, tubs and trays fraction, a significant part of that waste stream that previously was either going to landfill, being exported or wasn’t being utilised at all.”