United Kingdom – Jo Churchill MP, the Minister for Resources and Waste, opened Viridor’s Resource Recovery Centre in Avonmouth, near Bristol.
Viridor, a leading resource recovery and waste management company in the UK, can now fully recycle over 90% of the plastics it previously exported in the UK. Viridor’s commitment to end plastic waste exports and invest in British recycling infrastructure includes the Avonmouth Resource Recovery facility, which will reduce UK plastic waste exports by about 8%.
According to Viridor, the UK will require five more large-scale plastics reprocessing facilities to eliminate all plastic waste exports. These reprocessing plants would generate a third of a billion pounds in investment, create jobs in communities across the country, and contribute significantly to the country’s Net Zero goals.
Increasing recycling rates
Plastics reprocessing and an energy recovery facility (ERF) are co-located in one building at Avonmouth, which is a UK first. Every year, the ERF will divert 320,000 tonnes of non-recyclable household waste from more polluting landfills, generating more than 300 GWh of electricity, enough to power 84,000 homes. Every year, the plastics reprocessing facility will reprocess over 80,000 tonnes of plastic – more than 1.6 billion bottles, tubs, and trays – resulting in recycled raw material that will be recycled and returned to the economy.
“Closing the Loop: Viridor’s roadmap to a truly circular plastics economy,” a Viridor report released in November 2021, showed that increasing plastic packaging recycling rates to 70%, up from 51 percent today, could save around 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the equivalent of taking c.685,000 cars off the road.
