Jonathan Short starts new plastics recycling venture

Jonathan Short, the former Chief Executive of ECO Plastics, has started a new UK recycling business.

Plastics Reclamation Limited (PRL) has been formed by Short, along with ECO Plastics’ former Commercial Director, Duncan Oakes, to “capitalise on their combined knowledge of plastics reprocessing operations and global outlets for recycled and recyclable plastic scrap.”

The company will undertake reprocessing of bi-products from plastic operations in both the UK and across Europe, trade plastic scrap to a database of customers across Europe and Asia, as well as offering a consultancy service.

“Over recent years we have seen the development and growth of some large plastics re-processors within the UK, across Northern Europe and more recently Eastern Europe,” explained Short.

“These businesses - understandably - tend to focus on their core competency and have been historically reliant upon a healthy demand from the Far East for the many by-products produced by their factories. As these traditional markets evolve we have seen demand for such low grade material all but evaporate; however the demand for a ‘product’, rather than waste, continues to grow and I see that continuing. This combined with a necessary growth across Europe to handle ever increasing amounts of scrap plastic presents the opportunity – to recover that material, add value to it and then sell to manufacturers.”

“Duncan has built an unrivalled customer base with high value markets for recovered plastics across Asia and closer to home here in the UK and Europe. We also have some very interesting and niche markets in the SRF and waste-to- energy industry for non-recyclable plastics.”

Short added that having recently left ECOPlastics Recycling, there are certain market areas within which PRL is unable to enter but added, “there are plenty of other material streams out there.”

PRL will reportedly be working very closely with Agricycle, a Lincolnshire-based agricultural plastics reprocessing business, whose facilities include baling, shredding and granulation, shredding, granulation and washing/drying, metal removal processes and two bespoke density separation processes for accurate separation of similar materials.

Although the business has only been operating for a few weeks, Short says it has already taken on “a number of clients” including businesses who are developing business plans in the plastics reprocessing industry or wanting to evolve existing business plans.