Yes Recycling facility, co-owned by supermarket Morrisons, in Fife has entered administration only months after it opened.
Stuart Preston and Julie Tait, of Grant Thornton UK LLP, were appointed as Joint Administrators of Yes Recycling (Fife) Limited on 20 April 2023.
Grant Thornton says that despite “significant investment” in the new facility, production had yet to reach full capacity and caused cashflow difficulties, which led to the facility entering administration.
The administrators say that the remainder of the Yes Recycling Group, which is headquartered in Buckinghamshire, is unaffected by the administration of the Scottish business.
This is a disappointing outcome for all those associated with the company, and our immediate priority is to support the company’s 60 employees.
Julie Tait, Restructuring Director at Grant Thornton and one of the Joint Administrators, commented: “While the business has invested heavily in state-of-the-art recycling equipment, it had not yet been able to operate at full capacity and this has resulted in cash flow challenges in recent weeks.
“This is a disappointing outcome for all those associated with the company, and our immediate priority is to support the company’s 60 employees while we assess the company’s financial position and seek a buyer for its business and/or assets.”
The site is co-owned by Morrisons and was constructed and operated by Yes Recycling. Several organisations, including Nestlé UK & Ireland and Zero Waste Scotland, were also involved in the development of the recycling plant.
When the site opened, Morrisons described it as the “first of its kind” to process a mix of plastics, including film, into reusable materials.
We will of course assist the administrator in any way we can in the coming weeks.
A spokesperson for Morrisons told Circular Online: “Yes Recycling Fife is a joint venture in which we first invested in November 2021. The plant planned to take hard-to-recycle plastics such as crisp packets, sweet wrappers and film lids and convert them into materials that can be sold to the manufacturing, construction and DIY industries.
“However, the plant encountered a number of significant operational issues which meant that the cash burn was significantly ahead of projections. In recent weeks the business has urgently sought alternative additional funding which was, very regrettably, unsuccessful.
“We recently learned that the lending bank has placed the business into administration. We will of course assist the administrator in any way we can in the coming weeks.”
We hope the Fife plant will find a suitable buyer very quickly, so that its activities can resume.
Ecosurety facilitated the development of the facility by acting as a security agent between Yes Recycling and several of its members. As part of this role, Ecosurety says it is currently working closely with the administrator to secure outstanding debts on behalf of its members.
A spokesperson for Ecosurety told Circular Online: “We are deeply saddened by the news of Yes Recycling entering administration, especially as the UK desperately need more recycling infrastructure to process our waste nationally.
“We hope the Fife plant will find a suitable buyer very quickly, so that its activities can resume and reach its potential of 15,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic packaging recycled per year.”
