Community Life

Closed Loop recycling plant near Dagenham Dock expects to process 35 thousand tonnes of milk and soft drink bottles a year.

The bottles will be turned into special flakes- called PET flakes, which can then be used food packaging. At the moment most food that’s recycled isn’t a high enough quality to be used with food. And it’s hoped the plant will stop a significant amount of waste being sent to landfills.

The £12 million plant was the brain child of Chris Dow, who says this is something he’s been trying to make happen for years:

“We’ve been working on this for five years” he told me.

“Currently what you have is recycling from a bottle into other products. The key with [our plant] is it returns [the bottle] to its previous, thus saving on production of virgin plastic.”

The project is being supported by WRAP – a government funded agency to help businesses recycle, and the LDA.