Plastic waste hub to revolutionise recycling

● State-of-the-art recycling plant will process all plastic – even toys and film

A ground-breaking new waste hub in Perthshire could be a game-changer for recycling.

The £3.4 million Project Beacon, at Binn Eco Park in Glenfarg, will use state-of-the-art technology to process all types of plastic rubbish for the first time. Even items such as broken toys and crates, which would usually be sent to landfill, can be dealt with.

A joint initiative between four firms, it will host the country’s first commercial recycling machine that can convert plastic back to oil.

The scheme has been awarded £1.7m of funding from Zero Waste Scotland’s Circular Economy Investment Fund, supported by the Scottish Government and the European Regional Development Fund. A further £1.7m has come from private backers.

PI Polymer Recycling, Binn

0 Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham and Zero Waste Scotland chief executive Iain Gulland at Project Beacon Group, Recycling Technologies and Impact Recycling are behind the plant.

“We’re on a mission to have no plastics left behind,” said John Ferguson, director of Perthshire-based Ecoideam and founder of Pi Polymer Recycling.

“In the first phase we’ll be able to take any large rigid plastics, including broken toys, crates, plastic pipe, garden furniture, drums and so on. In the second phase we’ll be accepting all types of plastics collected at the kerbside. Any that can’t be sorted will become chemical feedstock for new products.

“No one is doing this at the moment unless they’re incinerating or landfilling plastics. It could be a globally disruptive model.”

The system uses state-of-theart separation systems to support mechanical recycling, together with a pioneering chemical recycling process.

This will allow processing of material that typically cannot be recycled using mechanical methods – such as laminated, black, film and hard plastics.

A range of chemical constituents are produced that can be used to create new virgin plastics or other products.

It’s hoped the facility, which will operate as a demonstration model, will be up and running later this year.

“By combining existing and innovative mechanical and chemical recycling technologies, Project Beacon boosts the local economy and enables household and large rigid plastics to be recycled instead of incinerated,” said Adrian Griffiths, chief executive officer of Recycling Technologies.

Plastics production has surged over the past 50 years, from 15 million tonnes in 1964 to more than 300 million tonnes, and is expected to double over the next 20 years.

Packaging is the biggest application of plastics but globally only around 14 per cent is collected for recycling.