Plans by Peel L&P Environmental (Manchester, UK; www.peellandp.co.uk) to build the UK’s first plastics recycling park in Cheshire have been unanimously approved by the local authority. The park, to cost GBP 165 mn (EUR 195 mn) will be developed at Protos, an energy and resource hub located near Ellesmere Port, processing up to 367,500 t/y of mixed recyclables and plastic. It is part of a major push by the region’s political and business leaders to make the UK’s North West the first net-zero region by 2040.

“It’s great to get unanimous backing for the plastic park – a UK first that will underpin the circular economy in the North West. It’s imperative we deliver creative solutions to UK’s plastic problem,” said Richard Barker, development director at Peel NRE, part of Peel L&P. “This project clusters recycling technologies in one place so that we can make the most of a whole range of plastic materials arriving on site, avoiding the need to ship them to different facilities around the region. It’ll mean we can cut down on vehicle movements, create 147 new jobs and deliver essential infrastructure to underpin a North West circular economy that’s much more sustainable.”

Proposals include two plastics recycling plants – one for separating plastics from a materials recycling facility along with mixed plastics, and a second to wash and process the material into flakes.

There will also be a polymer laminate recycling facility for handling items such as crisp packets and baby food pouches. These will be heated, and the plastic will be broken down into an oil and reused to make new products together with the aluminium recovered for recycling.

As part of the project, a hydrogen refuelling station will also be developed at the park. The hydrogen will be sourced from the UK’s first waste plastic-to-hydrogen facility that has already been approved at the Protos site (see Plasteurope.com of 07.09.2020).

Separately, Peel NRE has commissioned CDE (Tyrone, Northern Ireland; www.cdegroup.com) to build a construction and demolition waste recycling plant at Port Salford in Eccles, Greater Manchester.

Peel NRE has created a new business, NRE Aggregates, which will operate the plant to produce high-quality recycled construction products. The plant is expected to be commissioned this autumn.

Kieran Tames, Peel NRE’s director of development, said, “The plant will turn construction and demolition waste, one of the country’s biggest waste streams, into materials which will be used to build a multi-modal freight facility and distribution park at Port Salford and other construction sites across Greater Manchester. It contributes to a circular economy and will be capable of recycling up to 240,000 t/y of construction waste.”

The GBP 138 mn Port Salford development – located on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal – will be the UK’s first inland tri-modal freight and distribution park to be served by ship, rail and road.

Construction and demolition waste accounts for more than a third of all waste generated in Europe, according to the European Commission. It contains a wide variety of materials, such as concrete, bricks, wood, glass, metals, and plastic.