Nampak boosts recycled HDPE supply

The supply from Greenstar will supplement the 6,000 tonnes of recycled HDPE that Nampak has already agreed to take from the £12m Closed Loop London reprocessing plant in Dagenham, which is due to open in the first quarter of this year.

Nampak will also open its own 13,000-tonne capacity HDPE reprocessing plant in the north-east of England in 2009.

It will reprocess the material supplied by Greenstar and Closed Loop London solely for use in its own UK manufacturing operations.

The group makes 2 billion plastic milk and juice bottles a year and is the dominant player in milk bottles with around two-thirds of the UK market.

Nampak Plastics business development director James Crick said the firm planned to be the "first closed-loop HDPE recycler" in the country.

It already supplies HDPE milk bottles with 10% recycled content to Marks & Spencer, following a trial that started in December 2006.

Greenstar division Greenstar WES has started production of optically sorted washed flake at its plant in Redcar and will install Vacurema equipment, which performs the "super-clean" process, next month.

Greenstar WES managing director James Donaldson said the contract with Nampak had come as the firm was starting the final installations at its plant, which would deliver a "very technically challenging recycling process".

Greenstar currently processes milk bottles from its collection and sorting facilities at Darwen and Skegness. It is also commissioning the largest materials recycling facility in the UK at Aldridge in the West Midlands and, with bottles supplied by recently acquired Verdant Group, expects to be self-sufficient by the end of the summer.

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