The Fife site, co-owned and being built by recycling plant specialist Yes Recycling, will convert hard-to-recycle flexible food packaging into plastic flakes, pellets and boards
The plant will initially recycle 15,000 tonnes of flexible plastic packaging per annum. (Credit: Morrisons Ltd)
UK-based supermarket chain Morrisons has acquired a significant stake in a new recycling plant in Fife, Scotland becoming the first supermarket to own its own recycling operations.
Claimed to be the first of its kind in the world, the Fife site is co-owned and being built by recycling plant specialist Yes Recycling.
The facility will convert hard-to-recycle flexible food packaging into plastic flakes, pellets and boards.
Initially, the plant will recycle 15,000 tonnes of flexible plastic packaging per annum.
Morrisons already owns 18 of its own food manufacturing sites. The supermarket chain has committed that to recycle the equivalent amount of plastic that it uses by 2025.
The company had already announced it will cut its own-brand plastic packaging by 50% by 2025.
Morrisons procurement director Jamie Winter said: “Lots of work has been done by retailers to reduce plastic, but little to recycle what remains.
“We’re taking on that challenge and making a significant investment in a state-of-the-art soft plastic recycling site.
“It’ll take problematic plastics, recycle them here in the UK, and give them a new life. And by 2025 we want to increase our capability to be able to recycle and reuse the equivalent amount of plastic we put out on to the market within our own facilities.”
Morrisons said that the hard-to-recycle soft plastic products such as chocolate wrappers, crisp packets, and food film will be sent to the recycling site its distribution sites.
The supermarket chain aims to use the recycled material from the site for a wide range of applications, including store fixtures and fittings.
The recycling plant will create nearly 60 new jobs in the region.
Yes Recycling co-owner Omer Kutluoglu said: “This is a ground-breaking site which uses new patented plastic recycling technology, which we’ve developed over the last seven years.
“It is a blueprint for the future and will help to kick-start the UK’s plastics recycling industry. It will mean we can keep plastic in our own country’s ‘circular economy’ and out of our seas and oceans.”