Green light for UK plastics-to-diesel plant

United Kingdom – Bristol City Council’s Development Control (North) committee has approved SITA UK’s planning application to build an end-of-life plastics-to-diesel facility at Avonmouth in south-west England and to double the capacity of a previously-approved recycling facility.

Gareth Phillips, Planning Manager at SITA UK, hails this as ‘a landmark decision which will put Avonmouth at the forefront of the very latest in resource management technology and bring new jobs to the area’. And he continues: ‘Our plans to construct a Bristol Resource Recovery Park that will extract energy and value from waste, and reduce the amount of rubbish that is sent to landfill, are now being advanced and will bring benefits to the environment and the local economy.’

Forming part of the park will be the facility using ground-breaking technology to convert end-of-life plastics – such as yoghurt pots and meat trays – into diesel fuel. A gasification facility will also be built to deal with 100 000 tonnes per year of residual waste, while a recycling centre will be able to handle 80 000 tonnes of recyclables such as cans and plastic bottles.

According to current plans, the end-of-life plastics-to-diesel facility will produce around 4.2 million litres of specification diesel each year from 6000 tonnes of input material, while the recycling facility will extract around 72 000 tonnes of recyclate for reprocessing. SITA UK expects 208 staff to be employed at the Bristol Resource Recovery Park, including 83 relocations from the Bristol area and 125 brand new jobs.