A new £6.5 million plastic bottle recycling plant has opened in East London.
Ecotech’s facility is able to handle 18,000 tonnes of PET bottles per year and is now fully operational.
Based in Rainham, the facility will produce a hot washed PET flake suitable for thermoforming.
Ecotech chief executive Javed Mawji said: “We took possession of the site in April and had a two month installation process. We did trial runs from July and are now fully into production.”
Technical support and an end-to-end line has been provided by German firm STF, who are also partners in the project.
The hot washed flake will not be suitable for food grade uses, but could be if the buyer of the flake puts it through another cleaning process. However, most uses will be for packaging or other industrial applications.
Javed Mawji added: “We will be looking to buy 18,000 tonnes of high end PET plastic bottles every year, but we will not be buying mixed plastic bottles.
“We are currently mainly purchasing on the spot market from waste management companies and a small number of brokers.”
Former Shanks managing director Ian Goodfellow is chairman of Ecotech.
