Resource management specialist Sita UK (Maidenhead / UK; www.sita.co.uk) plans to build a plant to produce diesel fuel from end-of-life plastic such as yoghurt pots and meat trays at the proposed Bristol Resource Recovery Park in Avonmouth, Bristol / UK. The end-of-life plastic-to-diesel (ELPD) facility would be capable of producing 4.2 million litres of specification diesel annually from 6,000 t of waste plastic. The site would create 125 jobs.

Sita UK already has planning permission at the Recovery Park for a gasification unit to deal with 100,000 t/y of residual waste and a recycling facility to handle 40,000 t/y of recyclables such as cans and plastic bottles. Currently it intends to submit a planning application for the ELPD plant and also to double the size of the recycling operation to 80,000 t/y.

The ELPD activity would use technology that Sita has gained from an exclusive agreement on pyrolysis and distillation technology with Cynar (London / UK; www.cynarplc.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 18.11.2010. If the latest Sita plans get the go-ahead, the recycling facility would extract around 72,000 t/y of recyclate to be sent for reprocessing with some 6,000 t/y of non-recyclate material left over going into the gasification process to produce energy. The remaining 2,000 t/y would be fed to the ELPD process.

Plans for Sita to have an ELPD plant operating in the London area by the end of 2011 have yet to be finalised. One possible location is its existing site in Mitcham, Greater London.