A firm building a huge ecoPlant on Teesside has announced a key funding partner.

bp will initially receive the output of Clean Planet Energy’s first facility, designed to have the capacity to process 20,000 tonnes a year of waste plastics into naphtha and ULSD.

Read more: bp agrees Teesside deal with recycling firm Clean Planet Energy

The naphtha can be utilised as feedstock into circular plastics value chains, which is aligned with bp’s aim of unlocking new sources of value through circularity, keeping products and materials in use for longer. Clean Planet Energy will provide bp with the opportunity to expand the relationship by offtaking products from its future plants beyond Teesside.

Clean Planet Energy has announced a new joint venture with private equity firm Crossroads Real Estate to fund the flagship Teesside ecoPlant - the first of 10 new ecoPlants that Crossroads Real Estate and Clean Planet Energy are jointly seeking to build and operate across the UK.

At their peak, the facilities should create over 750 direct new jobs, and potentially thousands of indirect jobs when the ecoPlants move from development into the construction and operation phases.

The new venture could see more than £400m of new UK investment deployed for the future construction of these facilities to tackle the plastic waste crisis. Potential sites have already been identified in Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Lancashire and South Wales, with further locations and announcements to be made in the months ahead.

Clean Planet Energy’s ecoPlant is a green, advanced recycling facility intended to process non-recyclable and hard-to-recycle waste plastics that would otherwise be sent to landfill. Each ecoPlant is designed to accept 20,000 tonnes of plastics each year and to convert this waste into ultra-low sulphur fuels to replace fossil fuels in the transport and heavy-machinery sectors, and petrochemical feedstocks, including naphtha, which can be used to make new plastic products without the need to use fossil-based feedstocks.

Clean Planet Energy’s ultra-low-sulphur diesel can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 75% compared to the use of traditional diesel, while the joint venture could also lead to over 200,000 tonnes of hard-to-recycle waste plastics being repurposed for use in the circular supply chain each year.

The Northern Echo: How the CPE plants could lookHow the CPE plants could look (Image: Press release)

David Gillerman, Founding Partner and CEO of Crossroads Real Estate said, “At Crossroads, we are committed to green opportunities and impact investing as demonstrated already through our sustainable hotels strategy.

"We look forward to partnering with Clean Planet Energy to roll out ecoPlants across the UK, including the flagship ecoPlant already under construction in Teesside. The negative impact of plastic waste on our environment, plus the challenges we face from excess carbon emissions, made the joint venture with Clean Planet Energy a very compelling opportunity. With this investment, we have the ability to make a significant environmental and social impact across the UK.” 

Bertie Stephens, Group CEO of Clean Planet Energy, commenting on the extension of their vision that this joint venture enables, said, “Clean Planet Energy’s mission is to remove over one million tonnes of non-recyclable plastic waste from our environment, every year. This exciting partnership gives us the capacity to make a significant dent in this target.

"Having Crossroads Real Estate join us, not just for the development of potentially ten new UK ecoPlant projects, but also for the construction of the current Teesside ecoPlant, means in Crossroads we have a partner who, like us, is focussed on making a sustainable difference with its investments; delivering on a vision of a greener United Kingdom and beyond.

"We’re now reaching out to local councils and private partners across the UK who could benefit from a reduction in plastic waste entering their landfill”.

 

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