Viridor and Unilever agree five-year contract for recycled plastic

UK recycling and waste management company Viridor has reached an agreement with Unilever to supply the FMCG giant with a range of recycled plastics from its currently under-construction Avonmouth resource recovery centre near Bristol.
 
The companies have agreed an initial five-year contract for recycled plastic from the plant, Viridor said in a 20 Nov statement.
 
Set for operation by 2021, Viridor’s £65m (€75.8m) Avonmouth plant is claimed to be the biggest multi-polymer reprocessing plant in the UK, with an expected production capacity of 60 kilotonnes per annum (ktpa) at the end of its first year of production.
 
For its first year, the unit will recylce 81ktpa of feedstock, but it expects to increase its processing capacity to 89ktpa and its output to 63ktpa in three years.
 
The plant will recycle plastics from post-consumer bottles, pots, tubs and trays in PET, HDPE and PP materials.
 
The facility will be powered by a £252m (€293m) energy recovery unit, which will generate 282GWh of power from 320,000 tonnes of non-recyclable post-consumer waste diverted from landfill.
 
“Viridor and Unilever are committed to helping the UK achieve its recycling and sustainability targets and this contract demonstrates how we are translating that ambition in action,” said Viridor Resource Management managing director Keith Trower.
 
Viridor, according to Trower, noticed “a gap” in the UK plastic reprocessing capacity and the Avonmouth investment was made in response to market demand. The company broke ground on the combined facilities in May this year.
 
Both Unilever and Viridor are members of the UK Plastics Pact, which sets the target of at least 30% average recycled content across all plastic packaging by 2025.
 
Commenting on the agreement, Sebastian Munden, Unilever UK & Ireland general manager, said a key challenge for Unilever to reach its recycled content targets was “limited availability of high-quality recycled content.”
 
“That’s why we’re so pleased that our collaboration with Viridor will bring extra capacity on-line in the UK,” Munden noted. 
 
Viridor and Unilever have previously worked together with Nextek Ltd on detectable black plastic packaging for Unilever’s TRESemmé and Lynx personal care brands with trials carried out at Viridor’s Rochester Polymers Recycling Facility in Kent.