News

Almost half of the jobs at AWS Eco Plastics' Hemswell plant could be lost following the fire that ripped through the plastics reprocessing facility in August.

The blaze destroyed bottle-sorting and storage facilities, but reprocessing and hot washing equipment survived and the firm resumed production of food-grade PET a week after the fire broke out.

Although the firm is rebuilding the facility, around 40 staff associated with the sorting line are facing redundancy of the total 85 workers employed at the site.

Managing director Jonathan Short told Packaging News: "We're just going through the final stage of consultation now and expect to make an announcement in the first week or so of November."

Short said he hoped to have a new sorting line up and running by August and expected to place orders for new equipment in the next couple of weeks. "We are in the final negotiations with insurers over the cost of the rebuild based on suppliers' quotations," he said.

More than 75 firefighters were called to the fire that broke out on 25 August, and crews were called back to deal with small pockets of fire at a smouldering silo that reignited three weeks later.

As well as reprocessing food-grade PET, AWS has also started up hot-washing lines again to take in lower quality material.

The sorting line formed part of a £14m expansion of the site that was completed shortly before the fire.

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