Plastics recycling business Jayplas is set to open a HDPE & PP washing plant next year in North Thoresby, near Grimbsy.

The facility has the capacity to process 20,000 tonnes of material per year. Once opened, it will mean Jayplas has a film sorting plant in Birmingham, rigids sorting plant in Derbyshire, LDPE washing plants in Loughborough, PET washing & sheet manufacturing plant in Corby and a flexible packaging manufacturing plant in Worksop. Another new facility is also opening in Swansea in 2024.

Commissioning of the Grimsby plant is set to begin in Q1 2024. The new HDPE & PP washing plant will be able to campaign run material such as HDPE natural milk bottles – colour sorted HDPE from personal / household packaging also PP packaging, all sourced from local authorities and commercial customers, after they have been sorted at the company’s plastics recovery facility in Derbyshire.

Jayplas has owned the site for more than a decade. It was previously used for baling & storage.

An aerial shot of the 20,000 tonnes per year facility

‘Excited’
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Jason Hall, engineering & development director, said: “We are really excited to be bringing this facility to the market. The plant has been designed using the latest technology available for recycling high quality rHDPE & rPP materials for new packaging products.

“An HDPE line was always within our plans. This is a natural progression for our company. We’ve got PET, we’ve got films. This means we now have processing capacity for all of the main polymers in the market.
“Producers are keen to put more higher recycled content into their products and this plant will enable them to do that.”

Cold commissioning is due to start in Q1 2024 and Jayplas is currently putting in place the staff to run the site.

• The site is fitted with a Pellenc opitcal sorter
• An Erema Re-Fresher
• The Lindner wash line will also form part of the facility
• The Erema RegrindPro

Process
Baled material from the company’s sorting facility, sourced from MRFs, plastic plants and local authorities, will be broken down, before going through three optical sorters supplied by Pellenc and also recovery, so anything oversorted gets a second chance to go round again.

It is then shredded, pre-washed, granulated, hot washed, separated, labels removed and dried on a Lindner washline. The washed flake is then sorted using equipment from Allcontrols / Cimbria. The FDA approved pelletising and re-fresher decontamination process has been supplied by Erema.

End markets
The finished pellet supplied will be FDA & EFSA approved for food contact packaging and equivalent for non-food packaging, to be used in the manufacturing of new milk cartons, shampoo and detergent bottles, bringing more domestically recycled content to the market, Jayplas said.