Recycling site begins production

Veka Recycling has begun full production at the company’s new headquarters site in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

From acquisition in February 2018 of the 5.5-acre site on the town’s Finedon Road Industrial Estate, and after undergoing a substantial refurbishment, rebuilding work and industrial fit out, the facility is now converting full loads of virgin, post-consumer and industrial profiles into PVCU compound.

Further investment and development during the next 12 months will extend the capabilities and capacity of the plant, to become what the company has called “Europe’s most advanced specialist windows recycler”.

“We are very pleased with the progress we have made at our new site,” Veka Recycling’s managing director Simon Scholes said. “It took many years to find what is the perfect site for our requirements but we are on schedule to build a facility that will be totally self-sufficient and capable of recycling in excess of 25,000 tonnes per annum by the end of 2019.”

Current capability allows the plant to accept previously installed frames as well as virgin offcuts, reduce them, and then transfer component materials for further reduction and separation. PVCU is then further processed at Wellingborough and returned to market for re-manufacture.

New products produced using Veka recycled compounds include new window profiles, sills and trims, as well as products as diverse as electrical conduit and construction components.

When the plant is fully operational all materials will be extracted and re-processed on site.

The Wellingborough plant will be the third to be built by Veka Umwelttechnik, the specialist recycling subsidiary of the Veka AG Group, of which Veka Recycling is a wholly owned division.

The company opened its first PVCU recycling plant in Behringen, Germany, in 1993. A further facility was opened in France in 2006. The combined capacity of the three plants will exceed 100,000 tonnes of PVCU windows a year.

“Veka Group made the commitment to invest more than £8 million at Wellingborough after the Brexit vote was known, and is fully committed to the UK market, irrespective of the status of the UK relating to Europe,” Simon said. “There is very real belief in and commitment to both the concept of recycling and to the UK window and door market.”