A new plastics recycling partnership based in Scotland has been awarded £3 million in funding to continue its work into finding a way of recycling all plastics – even those that aren’t currently recyclable.
The Manufacturer reported on the efforts of those involved in Project Beacon at Binn Farm in Perthshire, where a group of recycling firms are developing a process to boost plastics recycling.
PI Polymer Recycling, Recycling Technologies, Impact Recycling and Binn Group are working together to develop a solution that would see all plastics able to be recycled, thereby contributing to the circular economy.
The news provider explained that they are working on a system that uses “new state-of-the-art separation systems to support mechanical recycling, fused with a game-changing chemical feedstock recycling process”.
One of the areas the firms have been concentrating on is their method for recycling mixed, laminated, black and film plastics. They’re using a patented process that’s based on thermal cracking to make it possible to recycle these items that are currently just sent to landfill or incinerated.
This could be a significant breakthrough in terms of starting to deal with the problem of plastic pollution. A recent article in the Metro revealed that every year 1.3 billion black plastic trays get used, with the majority going to landfill, according to Greenpeace UK figures.
The process developed by Project Beacon returns these plastics to a state where they are a range of chemical constituents that can then be reused to make virgin plastics, or other chemical projects.
It’s hoped that the first demonstration facility to showcase the technology will be up and running by the end of this year.
Roseanna Cunningham, cabinet secretary for the environment, climate change and land reform in Scotland, explained why this initiative is so important.
“Initiatives like Project Beacon have the potential to be ground-breaking as they are finding new uses and economic potential for hard-to-recycle plastics which could make a significant contribution to reducing waste and increasing recycling,” she stated.
The funding given to Project Beacon has come from two sources – £1.7 million has been provided by Zero Waste Scotland’s Circular Economy Investment Fund, with a further £1.7 million sourced from private investors.
Although the Metro article points out that many firms are planning to reduce or eliminate their use of black plastic in the coming months, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s already a lot of it in the supply chain.
Quorn has pledged to get rid of 247 tonnes of black plastic from its supply chain by the end of June, for instance, while Waitrose has unveiled plans to stop using this form of plastic by the end of 2019.
Iceland, meanwhile, is ahead of both of them having already phased out black plastic from many of its own-brand lines.
Campaigners are also calling on consumers to think more about the impact that plastic has on the environment, and where possible to refuse to buy products that are sold in plastic containers, but particularly those in black plastic to force more retailers to make the change.
Firms working in to develop new recycling processes to help reduce the amount of plastic waste being sent to landfill may benefit from specialist chemical analysis services in the UK.
