Putting sustainability studies into practice

Opening the door to opportunity for people

We believe in investing in the future workforce. Several of our sites offer internships and apprenticeships to young people in our local communities in partnership with colleges and universities and through regularly participating in careers fairs.

In 2020, Alice Armstrong, a postgraduate at Swansea University, worked with Nigel Morley, Operational Excellence Director, for eight weeks on two specific sustainability projects.

The first project sought to optimise injection stretch blow moulding for the manufacturing of food-grade recycled PET bottles from post-consumer recycled (PCR) waste. Alice explored the viability of turning PCR PET flakes into food-grade pellets as raw material to produce bottles

made from 100% recyclate and the possibility of using new technology that would improve the efficiency and sustainability of both the production process and the finished bottles. The eventual implementation of this technology could produce savings of more than 30 tonnes of carbon emissions per year, and the use of PCR PET instead of virgin PET could avoid emissions of 200 tonnes.

Alice made such impressive progress that she assumed another project, this time defining energy reduction opportunities at our Kirkby-in-Ashfield site. Alice participated in the energy use mapping initiative and by monitoring specific machines, such as the water chillers, we aim to track energy usage in specific business areas. The objective is to implement a series of updates to aspects of machines such as chillers, vacuum pumps and compressed air distribution to improve our energy usage and prevent any further energy wastage.