Swindon-based Recycling Technologies Ltd, a specialist plastic recycling technology provider, has hired seven apprentices who will be joining the company from Honda.

The business has partnered with Swindon College to enable these apprentices to attain academic qualifications at the college while gaining experience as part of Recycling Technologies’ manufacturing team.

The company has developed a scalable and patented technology — RT7000 — that can recycle plastic waste into a valuable feedstock for new plastic production.

Trademarked as Plaxx, it allows the production of new plastic from plastic waste that has been difficult to recycle through current mechanical recycling methods and is therefore disposed of through landfilling, incineration or being exported.

Penny Grobler, Recycling Technologies’ HR director, said: “We are delighted to have brought seven new apprentices from Honda on board. Following the announcement of its closure last year, we worked closely with Honda’s apprenticeship team to identify opportunities for apprentices, as we knew they would be highly motivated, keen to learn new skills and attain academic qualifications.

“We are proud to have launched our apprenticeship programme, in conjunction with Swindon College, to include formal qualifications, along with engineering and other general business skills.”

Dale Rautenbach, the company’s manufacturing director, said: “We are always looking to recruit talented employees as we grow our business. We have developed a unique and specialist technology to recycle plastic, and these apprentices are integral to our future and the development of a skilled workforce allows us to manufacture our specialist plastic recycling machinery from our base in Swindon.”

Currently, 88% of the plastic used in the world is either buried, burned or leaked into the environment, which means that the world recycles only 12% of the 359 million tonnes of plastic produced each year.

Recycling Technologies’ RT7000 turns hard-to-recycle plastic (such as films, bags and laminated plastics) into an oil called Plaxx, which is used as a feedstock for new plastic production.