‘Nationally important’ £16m recycling plant gets green light from Redcar & Cleveland planners

WASTE disposal firm Biffa’s plans to create a “nationally important” £16million plastics recycling facility in the North East have been given the green light by Redcar and Cleveland Council.

A planning application was submitted in April to construct the plant, capable of recycling more than 650million plastic milk bottles annually.

The facility will sit on a site adjacent to its existing base at the Wilton International Estate in Redcar and cover 35,348 sq ft of floorspace.  

The existing plant, which is already the largest milk bottle recycling plant in the UK, has five process lines and employs 143 people.

A planning statement submitted alongside the application said that the new development would be “innovative, market-leading and of national importance”.

It would cost about £16m to build, and be able to handle about three tonnes of plastic milk bottles an hour.

The statement added that the facility would make a “significant contribution to processing plastics at a time when there is keen public and media focus on plastics recovery, reuse and recycling”.

As a result of the expansion, an estimated 26 full-time jobs will be created, ranging from shopfloor operators to engineers and logistics personnel.

Biffa’s statement said: “It is important to Biffa that as many positions as possible are filled locally and, as a result, comprehensive training would take place at Biffa’s existing facility, thereby improving the skills within the local workforce with career progression opportunities available within Biffa.”