N Ireland firm, Irish Polymers, has set up a fully automatic sorting facility for plastic bottles. The plant, based at Crumlin, Co. Antrim, is the first facility in Ireland and will cost around 1.5M Euros. Until now, used plastic bottles collected throughout Ireland for recycling were simply baled, stuffed into containers and shipped to China. The company says it plans to process around 10,000 tonnes of mixed plastic bottles in the next 12 months. The material will be collected throughout Ireland and represents about 60% of what is collected. That material can now be sorted into various polymer types. Plastic lemonade bottles can be recycled into fleece jackets, T-shirts and jeans. Plastic milk & shampoo bottles can be turned into pipes, fencing & road signs.
