UK’s Viridor to close Avonmouth mechanical recycling plant

LONDON (ICIS)–UK-headquartered recycler Viridor intends to close its Avonmouth mechanical recycling facility following a strategic review, the company announced in a press release on Tuesday.

The Avonmouth facility has a nameplate capacity of 80,000 tonnes/year of recycled polymers output concentrated on recycled polyolefins.

Viridor is conducting a separate review of its Rochester mechanical recycling plant.

The company attributed the decision to challenging market conditions, along with an absence of planned UK legislation to increase UK recycling rates.

The company also cited low cost imports entering Europe and displacing domestic supply, echoing comments made by Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) on 24 October.

“If circular plastics are to thrive in Europe, then plant closures are damaging to that progress. However, Viridor has been restructuring over a period of time including selling their waste business. While this is a refocus for Viridor, it leaves the UK market with reduced supply of recycled polymers,” said Helen McGeough, global analyst lead, plastics recycling, ICIS.

Across both recycled polyethylene (R-PE) and recycled polypropylene (R-PP) players in recent weeks, recycled flake and pellet producers have complained of negative margins in non-packaging grades.

While packaging demand in Europe has remained firmer than non-packaging across 2024 to date, and new packaging projects continue to onboard in Q4, there has been increasing bearishness in the sector since October as players focus on core business due to strained macroeconomic conditions.

Viridor said it will continue to invest in polymer recycling through its Quantafuel subsidiary – which is focused on pyrolysis-based chemical recycling.

ICIS assesses more than 100 grades throughout the recycled plastic value chain globally – from waste bales through to pellets. This includes recycled polyethylene (R-PE), recycled PET (R-PET), R-PP, mixed plastic waste and pyrolysis oil. On 1 October ICIS launched a recycled polyolefins agglomerate price range as part of the Mixed Plastic Waste and Pyrolysis Oil (Europe) pricing service. For more information on ICIS’ recycled plastic products, please contact the ICIS recycling team at recycling@icis.com

Thumbnail photo: Sorting at a plastics recycling facility (Source: Shutterstock)