North East business park launches recruitment drive ahead of “global first” plant opening

The Wilton Centre is the focus of a major recruitment campaign to select a team to operate a “global first” recycling plant.

Centre occupier ReNew ELP announced last year that it had chosen the Stockton based specialist px Group to run and maintain the plant which will recycle waste plastics which up until now have been considered unrecyclable. These include multi-material films and flexible plastics as well rigid products such as pots, tubs and trays.

After weeks of interviews at the Wilton Centre the majority of more than 30 operational roles have been filled. Meanwhile ReNew ELP has confirmed that the plant, on the neighbouring Wilton International site, is shortly to enter the commissioning phase.

It will initially produce 20,000 tonnes per year of fossil-equivalent hydrocarbons from plastic waste every year, with plans to expand the site once this initial line is up and running..

Claire Morton, Wilton Centre’s leasing and assistant asset manager, commented: “We’re proud to be playing a role in such an important project. We’ve followed and supported ReNew ELP ever since it moved here more than four years ago and it’s great to see that their hard work is coming to fruition.”

The plant will be the first in the world on a commercial scale to use a specially-developed process called HydroPRS, which returns waste plastics into the oils from which they were originally formed.

These low carbon, fossil-equivalent hydrocarbon products can then be used in the manufacture of new plastics and other products. There is no limit to the number of times the same plastic can be recycled via HydroPRS, creating a circular economy and replacing the need for fossil feedstock in the manufacture of new plastics.

Antony Myrddin-Baker, px Group plant manager, commented: “We chose to recruit at the Wilton Centre because of the proximity of ReNew ELP and the new plant, but also because it is very much at the hub of new circular economies being developed in Teesside.”

Antony said px received more than 700 applications and he was delighted with the calibre of the candidates. “There have been some tough decisions but we’re really happy with the balance of the team.

“They’re from right across the board, men and women, people with more than 25 years of experience and even people who have just finished their apprenticeships.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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