A £9 million plastic recycling centre in Teeside may be forced to open later as it cannot find enough employees.
Sims Recycling Solutions is looking to open its plastics separation centre in Billingham and is struggling to find 50 people to fill vacancies before it is due to start operating in May.
Sims Recycling Solutions chief executive Graham Davy said that the company already has 55 members of staff there on its existing WEEE recycling facility, but needs more people for the new plastics sorting operation.
He added: “We didn’t expect to find it so hard to fill these roles. We think it’s important to find the workforce locally, we want to keep it in the community. We’re not just looking for technical people – we do need lots of them – but we also need admin staff, an accounting team, and supervisors. We have been advertising these jobs for the past 12 months, but haven’t had much interest, and now we’re hoping to take people on in the next few weeks.”
