MERSEYSIDE scrap metal giant European Metal Recycling (EMR) is planning to invest millions in creating a planet-saving plastics recycling plant.

The company has teamed up with American specialist MBA Polymers to harvest 10,000 tons of material a year from cars and electronic appliances that currently go to landfill or for incineration. EMR's metal shredding machines in the Mersey docklands currently crunch millions of tons of metal from around the world but are unable to process plastics.

A specialist plant is required to remove and recyle the plastic element of some goods so a nearby site would be ideal. Mr David Ireland, EMR’s director of technical services said:

'EMR is a leader in metals recycling and this collaboration with MBA will make us a leader in plastic recycling too. It is a very significant step not only for EMR and MBA but for the UK too as this investment will allow us to recover the previously untapped plastic resource in the materials we recycle.'

Not only will this divert materials from landfill and generate significant CO2 savings but it will also put EMR at the forefront in meeting the very demanding recycling targets set under producer responsibility regimes in vehicle and electronics recycling.

'These targets are very exacting and can only be met by applying new technologies to the recovery of plastics. We have been working with MBA for some time on this problem and we are very excited that we have now reached the stage where we can announce our intention to build a plant in the UK.'

A new joint venture company called MBA Polymers UK will recover plastics from upgraded 'shredder residue.' This shredder residue is a complex plastics-rich mixture of materials resulting from the recycling of automobiles, appliances and other metal-rich streams.

It is estimated over 10m tons of plastics from automobiles, electronics, appliances and other end-of-life durable goods are disposed of each year around the world.

These plastics are common- ly land-filled or incinerated at high economic and environmental costs because they have been deemed too expensive to recover.