WASTE management giant Re-Gen Waste, one of Europe’s most advanced material recovery facilities, is spending £2 million to expand the paper recycling lines at its Newry headquarters to enable it to target markets like China, effectively helping 'Brexit-proof' the border company.
The move, part of a planned £9m investment earmarked over the next three years, will create 30 jobs during the construction phase and 12 full-time posts on completion, taking the total workforce to more than 200.
And the investment will enable the company - which will have sales this year north of £28 million - to significantly increase paper exports so it can continue to serve customers across the world for years to come.
“The completion of this project is hugely significant on a number of fronts," Re-Gen’s managing director Joseph Doherty said.
“As an ambitious company with innovation at the core of everything we do, we're making a clear statement of intent about our commitment to our employees and aspirations for the future.
“The plant upgrade will enable us to achieve a much improved performance, giving us a far stronger and more competitive position in the global paper market.
“We learned from the World Trade Organisation that the Chinese Government intended to ban certain grades of paper, which we were supplying to their top three mills.
“In order to meet this challenge rapidly we pumped £2million into our R&D department to help us instal optical sorting, ballistic separators and a range of eddy currents and steel magnets, which will allow us to offer China and other markets, the higher grades of paper they are now demanding."
He added: “Our in-house R&D department, which includes a stand-alone engineering and fabrication team (logistics and plant), allows us to make new machinery and operational efficiencies so we can respond immediately to market demands and are better equipped to defend ourselves against the challenges from large customers altering their specifications.
“Additionally we have sourced new customers in Europe, specifically Germany and Turkey, who will take all grades of recovered paper.”
Re-Gen, whose operations including waste to energy, mixed dry recycling processing, municipal solid waste processing and engineering, says it has "significant plans" for the continued growth and evolution of the business, with a clear strategy to target local contracts and expansion in the UK and European markets.
