A MATERIALS handling facility which will put waste cardboard, paper, glass, wood, metals and plastics to planet-helping new uses is now operating at the Orthios company’s site at Holyhead, Anglesey.

The main purpose of the plant is to provide Orthios with a stream of hard-to-recycle plastics for processing in its innovative Plastics-to-Oil unit, where they will be converted into a range of products which can substitute for materials currently dependent on fossil fuel extraction.

But a by-product of the process will involve sorting and salvaging many items of commercial and industrial waste for re-use or re-purposing by UK-based third parties, rather than adding to landfill or environmental pollution.

Orthios (www.orthios.com) is a green technology and recycling company based on the site close to road, rail and shipping links at Holyhead, which was formerly occupied by Anglesey Aluminium.

Orthios waste and logistics director, Warren Steele, said: “It is high time we stopped seeing waste as a problem and recognised instead that it is a valuable resource which can help us to address the climate emergency by reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, cutting CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions and adopting a more sustainable lifestyle while also creating worthwhile jobs and business opportunities.”

Roughly 80 people are now working in the new Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), with another 35 currently preparing the company’s ground-breaking Plastics-to-Oil unit to become fully operational early in 2022.

Sean McCormick added: “As well as creating jobs and apprenticeships and putting waste to beneficial use by lessening how much we drain from Earth’s finite resources, we are also keeping our own carbon impact as low as possible.

“This includes repurposing, rather than rebuilding, infrastructure left over from when Anglesey Aluminium owned this site, making the Plastics-to-Oil unit self-heating, and ensuring that the tiny percentage of waste which can’t be re-used in the UK will go via boat from our jetty and the Port of Holyhead to partners in Sweden and Holland, where it will be used to heat homes”.

Orthios has invested roughly £4 million in equipping the MRF with the latest machinery and more than £70 million overall in acquiring the 800,000 square metres site and undertaking one of the UK’s biggest restorations of industrial land.

The company expects to have roughly 150 people, including apprentices, on its payroll by the end of this year and has further plans for expansion in 2022 and beyond.

The commissioning of the Orthios MRF coincides with the publication of a new pan-European study, suggesting that a greater commitment to recovering and recycling raw materials will become increasingly important to the achievement of climate protection goals.

It predicts that expanding waste management targets to include commercial or industrial waste, increasing recycling rates to 65 per cent and capping landfill at 10 per cent in both the UK and the EU, will result in an annual reduction (against 2018 figures) of roughly 150 million CO2 tonnes by 2035.

For a video explaining the Plastics to Oil process, go to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=voad6fDQO7s.