Pennon breaks ground on plastic recycling plant

The Pennon Group, Exeter, U.K., the parent company of U.K.-based recycling company Viridor, has broken ground on a £65 million ($82 million) plastic recycling plant that seeks to produce electricity through the processing of nonrecyclable material at Viridor’s energy recovery facility in Avonmouth, U.K.

Pennon notes that in the first year the multipolymer plant will produce 60,000 metric tons of recycled plastic a year from a feedstock of around 81,000 metric tons. The recyclable plastics will include bottles, pots, tubs and trays to be put into polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene terephthalate (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) flake and pellet form.

Pennon adds that by the third year the facility will increase the amount of scrap plastics it will process to around 89,000 metric tons per year and produce about 63,000 tons per year of recycled material. The energy used to operate the plastics recycling plant will come from the conversion of around 320,000 metric tons of waste into about 32 MW of electricity.

In a news release from the Pennon Group, Chris Loughlin, Pennon’s CEO, says, “Pennon is dedicated to working in ever-more sustainable ways, and we are extremely excited to be announcing this first-of-its-kind investment in plastics recycling. By using waste, which cannot be recycled, as the fuel to create low carbon electricity which will power plastics recycling, we are creating a truly resource and energy-efficient waste management solution.”