Beauparc (Dublin / Ireland; www.beauparc.ie) has announced plans to invest EUR 15m in a new plastics recycling plant through its subsidiary Panda (Dublin; www.panda.ie). Start-up of the plant in Corby / UK is scheduled for August 2018.

The waste management firm, which owns a number of recycling facilities in Ireland and the UK, said the new operation would employ around 40 staff and process between 10,000 t/y and 15,000 t/y of plastic films waste, sourced from both countries, and turn it into new products.

The company’s chief executive, Eamon Waters, said his firm had previously relied on China as the only destination for plastics recycling. With China banning imports of plastic waste from the beginning of 2018, solutions need to be found closer to home.

Waters had hoped to locate the new recycling operation in Ireland, but the length of time to set up a plant there ruled the country out. China had “moved extremely quickly to close its border to plastics from Europe,” he said. “Unfortunately, the regulations governing waste management in Ireland mean that we could take more than two years to obtain the necessary approvals to establish a recycling facility here, whereas the UK regulator has ready to go protocols in place to allow us start development on an approved site immediately.”

Beauparc was founded in 1990 by Waters. The group now has over 1,600 employees at 33 locations in Ireland and the UK.