Recycling Technologies (Swindon / UK; www.recyclingtechnologies.co.uk), a recycling machinery manufacturer, has signed a strategic alliance to cooperate with InterChem (Singapore; www.interchem.sg), a global commodities trader that focuses on logistics, shipping, storage, blending and financing in the global petroleum and petrochemical industry. Among other activities, the Singapore group provides feedstock won from recycled plastic waste products to polymer producers. The five-year agreement includes an equity investment of GBP 1m (EUR 1.1m) as well as the forward sale of GBP 50m of the polymer proportion of the UK firm’s new product “Plaxx” to InterChem’s customers. With the deal, Recycling Technologies said output of its first 12 “RT7000” machines earmarked for installation in the UK and northern Europe has now been sold.

According to the company, the new machine, developed to facilitate replacement fossil fuel-derived feedstock for production of polymers and synthetic waxes can be easily sited at existing waste centres. The RT7000 is said to be suitable for recycling all types of plastics, including hard to recycle films or coloured and laminated plastics into Plaxx feedstock. Already, Recycling Technologies claims to have machinery worth GBP 65m under contract. The first machine is planned to be installed later this year in Scotland, and the recycling specialist said it has received interest from sites in the UK and northern Europe to order subsequent machines. An assembly facility is currently being set up in Swindon to build as many as 200 of the machines annually to meet the expected additional demand.

“With the support of BEIS [the UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy], Swindon Borough Council, Zero Waste Scotland and our investors, we have been able to develop the technology that recycles even the difficult plastic packaging wastes, crisp packets, black trays and laminated materials,” said Recycling Technologies’ CEO Adrian Griffiths. These partnerships, he added, secure the commercial outlet for Plaxx and thus make all waste plastic packaging valuable material that will “significantly boost the circular economy credentials of plastic.”