The first of many planned throughout the UK, it will be a one stop shop for processing different types of plastic waste, avoiding it ending up in landfill, exported overseas or in our oceans.
The 30-acre Plastic Park could see over £165m invested at Protos. It will cluster together a variety of plastic recycling and treatment technologies, each designed to get the most value from plastic waste.
Peel L&P Environmental plans to revolutionise the way plastic waste is handled across the UK by creating a series of Plastic Parks, which could help to deal with the 4.9m tonnes of plastic waste that the UK generates each year. What can be recycled will be removed, and any non-recyclable plastic will be used to create electricity, hydrogen or other products.
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Richard Barker, Development Director, Peel L&P Environmental said: "Currently only around a third of the 4.9 million tonnes of plastic that the UK throws away each year is recycled, meaning we urgently need new infrastructure. The pandemic has highlighted how essential this material is to everyday life, but how it is dealt with when it comes to the end of its life needs addressing.
"Our first Plastic Park will be at our flagship strategic energy and resource hub, Protos. It will bring together a range of technologies each designed to maximise the value we can get from plastic waste. With front end sorting we can make sure that as much plastic as possible is recycled and then use innovative technologies to either create fuels, such as hydrogen, or new products from what’s left. We can take any type of plastic, whether it’s been mixed or separated, so it’s a simple solution for local councils."
The Plastic Park will be situated on the existing 54-hectare Protos site which brings together large energy users with sources of low-carbon energy, and clusters together resource management technologies. Protos was granted outline planning permission in 2009 which included the provision of a plastic recycling village. Peel L&P Environmental will be bringing forward a planning application for the Plastic Park in the coming months.
