Continuum Recycling, the joint venture company formed between Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE, Uxbridge, Middlesex / UK; www.cokecce.co.uk) and plastic bottle recycler ECO Plastics (Hemswell, Lincolnshire / UK; www.ecoplasticsltd.com), has officially opened its GBP 15m (EUR 18m) bottle recycling plant. Located on the site of ECO Plastics’ existing recycling operations, the facility has a capacity of 40,000 t/y and will raise the total capability at the Hemswell site to 140,000 t/y, making it the world’s largest plastics reprocessing facility – see Plasteurope.com of 25.07.2011. The official opening was performed by the UK’s Environment Minister, Lord Taylor, on 10 May.

The Continuum plant more than doubles the amount of bottle-grade recycled PET previously created in the UK and will allow CCE to meet its commitment to use 25% rPET in all its bottles by the end of 2012 (for more details on Coca-Cola's sustainability goals, see Plasteurope.com of 15.05.2012). The facility will be used this summer as part of an initiative by Coca-Cola to collect its “Coke” and other PET soft drinks bottles and turn them back into new bottles on retailers’ shelves within six weeks. The venture forms part of a programme intended to make this summer’s Olympic Games in London a zero-waste event that is as sustainable as possible.

Simon Baldry, managing director at Coca-Cola Enterprises, said the formation of Continuum Recycling demonstrates how serious his company is in setting an industry standard for sustainable packaging. It is a first for the industry, he emphasised, and “an important milestone in our on-going efforts to build a low-carbon, zero-waste business here in Great Britain”.

The Continuum operations will provide CCE with rPET for a minimum of 10 years, saving around 33,500 t of carbon dioxide emissions annually. ECO Plastics managing director Jonathan Short, stressed the strategic value of such a long-term partnership, which had given his business the confidence to invest in next-generation technology. This includes the “AutoSort” flake systems technology of Titech (Mühlheim-Kärlich / Germany; www.titech.com), which is based on bespoke spectrometer know-how – see Plasteurope.com of 01.12.2011. The five AutoSort systems installed allow sorting of PET flake by material and colour simultaneously.