Recycled bottles

The first ever UK-wide recycled content HDPE bottle will be available from next year, following an agreement between Nampak Plastics Europe and Closed Loop London.

From Summer 2008, plastics recycler and reprocessor, Closed Loop London, will provide Nampak, one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of rigid plastic containers, with up to 6000 tonnes of recycled High Density Polyethylene (rHDPE) each year for use at its UK production facilities.

The rHDPE will enable Nampak to produce bottles in the UK with 10 per cent recycled content. The move, which has been a year in development, is a forerunner to a 30 per cent rHDPE content bottle that the company expects to have in production in 2009.

The material will be reprocessed in a new production facility at Closed Loop London’s £13m plastics recycling and reprocessing plant in Dagenham. At the plant, HDPE bottles taken from the UK post consumer waste stream will go through a process involving cleaning, heating and reprocessing to turn them into flakes.

The news follows an agreement Nampak reached earlier with Marks and Spencer to supply the retailer with 10 per cent  rHDPE content bottles for its organic milk range.