Veolia to Pour £70 Million into Plastic Recycling Plant in Shropshire

Veolia is investing £70 million to transform an old industrial site in Battlefield, just outside Shrewsbury, into a major plastics sorting and recycling hub. Once complete, the facility is expected to handle up to 80,000 tonnes of plastic every year. It will also create more than 130 permanent jobs in the area, excluding the construction-related roles required to bring the site into operation. The plant is set to begin operations in early 2026.

The company timed the announcement to coincide with French President Emmanuel Macron’s official visit to the UK, highlighting the scale and importance of this project. Veolia’s most significant investment in plastics recycling in the country to date.

What makes this development stand out is that it will house the UK’s first dedicated recycling system that turns old PET trays and bottles directly into new food-grade packaging. This “tray-to-tray” approach is a closed-loop process, meaning materials will be fully recycled and reused in their original form. The primary target market is the UK grocery and food manufacturing industry.

Currently, the UK lacks the necessary infrastructure to recycle PET trays into food-safe material at an industrial scale. That’s because it’s challenging to meet the stringent quality and contamination standards required. But Veolia says it’s bringing lessons from its operations abroad to help close this gap at home.

The plastics used at the site will come from household and commercial collections across the UK. Once it’s up and running, the Shropshire facility will sort, shred, wash, and flake mixed plastics, helping reduce dependence on virgin materials. The environmental impact could be significant. Veolia estimates that using recycled plastic can reduce carbon emissions by as much as 70 percent compared to producing plastic from scratch.

This project is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. Veolia plans to invest £1 billion in circular economy infrastructure across the UK by 2030. Other active initiatives include the expansion of the Southwark district heating network, which will soon supply an additional 5,000 homes with heat recovered from the SELCHP waste-to-energy facility.