Recycling giant AWS Eco Plastics will reopen its plastic bottle recycling facility in Hemswell, North Lincolnshire, today (23 November) after a fire last year forced closure of the plant.

The £17m facility, the largest in Europe, will be capable of processing 100,000 tonnes of UK plastic waste each year, sorting and cleaning 300,000 bottles an hour that will then be either recycled onsite or exported to China.

The newly reopened facility marks the first stage of a major expansion push for the company that could ultimately see a second plant capable of processing 200,000 tonnes of plastic a year located on the same site.

AWS managing director Jonathan Short said the plant would be expanded during the first quarter of next year to process an extra 40,000 tonnes a year, while the company is also in the process of raising an additional £15m funding round that would allow it to begin work on a second facility.

As well as sorting and cleaning plastic bottles the plant would be able to recycle 40,000 tonnes of plastic each year to a level where it can be re-used as a food-grade plastic - essentially allowing drink bottles to be recycled and re-used as drink bottles.

According to Jonathan Short the carbon cost of making food-grade plastic from recycled material is a third of that of producing virgin