Firm at the double with plan

A booming recycling firm is to double the operations at its flagship Staffordshire base under a massive £750,000 investment plan.

GW Plastic Recycling is expanding its Norton Canes business over the next 12 months.

The firm will be boosting its operations at its plant in Norton Green Lane in response to demand for more recycling and waste use away from traditional landfill.

The family-owned company plans to invest the £750,000 in its Cannock plant to allow it to handle a wider range of materials.

This will be done in conjunction with other improvements to the company's plant in Grimsby which it is hoped will allow the firm to capitalise on changes to the waste industry.

Central government is putting increased pressure on local authorities to stop using landfill and recycle more.

To force this through, local councils will face an increase in landfill tax which could see them paying £150 for every tonne they bury.

If councils don't recycle more, they could face bills running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Director of GW Plastics, Mark Gilbert, said: "We hope to expand our sites and expand the types of material we take, so we can bid for local authority contracts as well as industry work.

"With changes to landfill, year on year, we envisage more and more demand for our services."

At the Cannock plant, GW Plastic Recycling currently takes around 10,000 tonnes and 5,000 tonnes of plastics a year, much of which comes from the automotive industry.

Mr Gilbert added: "We're working to expand what we do here dramatically.

"We are also looking to expand our fleet of trailers."

At the firm's Grimsby plant, which opened in April, the company can already process 2,000 tonnes of polystyrene packaging, 8,000 tonnes of card and 3,000 tonnes of soft and rigid plastic a year.

The business exports its compressed plastics to mainland Europe and the Far East where they are in demand.