The United Kingdom's Business Secretary Vince Cable got “up close and personal” with the intricacies of plastics recycling yesterday when he opened a new line at Dagenham, England-based Closed Loop Recycling.
The new plastic milk bottle recycling line is part of a 12 million pound ($20.1 million) investment strategy which CLR claimed would make it the biggest recycler of milk bottles in the world.
The new line will raise the plant's capacity to 55,000 metric tons a year, the company said.
Touring the facility with CLR chief executive Chris Dow, the minister said the new line would create jobs and growth in a “growing green industry.”
Cable said the “significant investment” in the CLR plant would also mean fewer plastic bottles being sent to landfills or exported for recycling overseas.
“It is precisely this sort of project which can support the U.K.'s transition to a green economy,” he added.
CLR's Dow said recycled milk and water bottles were a “massive win for the circular economy.”
He said discussions with the minister during his visit had included how to provide economic drivers to reprocess bottles, which he called a valuable resource, in the U.K.
“We can then work to influence recycling behavior across the supply chain from consumers to brands, in order to increase collection rates,” he added.