THOUSANDS of tonnes of plastic could be recycled at a new facility near Dunbar.

Viridor Waste Management Limited wants to create a plastics recycling facility (PRF) beside the Dunbar Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), which opened at Oxwellmains last year.

Early plans were submitted to East Lothian Council last week, with a public exhibition likely to be held in April.

Planning permission would allow Viridor to build a PRF, which would return about 85,000 tonnes per year of plastics to be re-manufactured.

The proposed development would be made up of four main parts: plastics washing, plastics feed stock store, process building, and waste treatment and heat exchanger building.

A letter to East Lothian Council in support of the scheme says: “The plastics recycling operation will be a significant energy consumer, requiring heated water to clean the plastics and electricity to power the recycling process.

“The ERF generates both these sources of energy and both can be captured for use in the recycling operation, which represents a significant benefit of co-locating these two activities.

“A back-up boiler will be provided, for occasions when the ERF is not operational, which will be for between two to three weeks a year for routine and unplanned maintenance.

“The heat exchangers will allow the capture of heat from the ERF process for use in the plastics recycling process.

A variety of tanks and plant will also be required outside of the buildings.”

Members of Dunbar Local Liaison Forum were sent a statement earlier this month outlining the proposals.

Five East Lothian community councils – East Lammermuir, West Barns, Dunbar, Dunpender, and Garvald and Morham – as well as groups in the Borders have been alerted to the plans.

A spokesman for Viridor said: “This process will pave the way for a plastics recycling and reprocessing plant to be built at Viridor Dunbar.

“Viridor’s future plans for Dunbar are designed to help Scotland deliver its ambitious climate change and circular economy targets.

“Scotland’s goal is to ensure that recyclable materials consumed here are retained within a Scottish circular economy.

“To achieve this, Scotland will need companies like Viridor to invest in recycling infrastructure, such as the plant we propose.

“Dunbar has been selected by Viridor as the most favourable site because a new plastics plant built here could draw on the low-carbon heat and power generated by Dunbar Energy Recovery Facility.

“In this way, the country would be able to achieve both its resource and energy efficiency goals. A further advantage would be the local job opportunities this development would create.”

Chris Bruce, chairman of East Lammermuir Community Council, said the group would be “extremely interested” to find out more about the scheme.

He said: “We are pleased that they have made the effort to let us know but curious as to the impact on the local environment, workforce and possibility for recycling.”