We are currently investing in new equipment at our recycling plant in Scotland to increase the flexibility in the materials it is able to process. This will mean being able to offer a wider range of services in the Scottish borders area.

We are also investing in granulation, blending and compounding equipment at our Lincolnshire distribution centre, Binbrook. This will mean adding more value to the materials that we distribute and increases the volume of recycling happening in the UK rather than being distributed out of the country to be recycled.

Whilst the preference would be to recycle the UK’s packaging waste in the UK itself, currently there just isn’t the infrastructure or capacity in the UK to deal with all of the UK’s plastic packaging waste.

The other option is to export these materials to utilise capacity elsewhere in the world. A study by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), suggested that it is more beneficial environmentally to export these materials for recycling than to end them to landfill in the UK.

CK Polymers fully support the findings of this study and are accredited for the export of plastic packaging waste and for the issue and sale of Packaging Export Recovery Notes (PERN’s).

The revenue from the sale of these PERN’s is then invested back into raising awareness of the need to recycle plastic packaging waste and to improve collection facilities across the UK.

One way that CK Polymers is looking to improve localised collection facilities for all types of plastic waste across the UK is by the expansion of its network of “plastic recycling partners”.

By passing on leads received from our website to our recycling partners and helping them to more easily distribute the plastics they have recycled we are encouraging these companies to improve the quality of the materials recycled and to enhance their collection facilities.

For more information please see our section on plastic recycling partners.

Improving quality of rGrade (recycled) plastic raw materials that come out of the waste stream is fundamental to the development of plastic recycling. The better the quality, the easier it is for the plastic to be recycled and thus our investment in improving quality further facilitates plastic recycling.

Since October 2007 we have been developing our material identification and testing facilities under the guise of CK Polymers technical services based at the Binbrook site.

Using the latest Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectrometry technology we are able to quickly, easily and safely identify different plastic types from the plastic waste stream. By offering a plastic identification service to our suppliers and recycling partners we are able to reduce the number of cases of material cross contamination during the recycling process.

For more information see the Quality menu.

Another fundamental element to increasing plastic recycling in the UK is developing markets to make use of the plastics being recycled.

The Far East (especially China) is one of the biggest markets for recycled plastics in the world. Since 2006 we have been developing our sales and distribution operation in Hong Kong to take advantage of this.

2008 was also an exciting time for the company in Europe, expanding its customer base there considerably after employing the services of Eric Misonne of Misco as our agent.