Maxine Brown prepares to open recycling plant

Maxine Brown, managing director of MB Recycling Ltd with Tom Brown,PMD Finance and Alan Bambroffe, Access to Finance

A new plastic recycling plant is set to open in Rochdale, with the aim of reducing the amount of plastic waste either being sent to landfill or exported to China.

Maxine Brown, managing director of MB Recycling Ltd, is in the final stages of opening the plant after sourcing finance for the expansion of her business, which she launched after being made redundant, later reaching a £600,000 turnover in its fourth year.

Maxine said: “In the early days, I quickly found the same message was going around – either send the waste to landfill or export to China, both of these options seemed to go against the grain, environmentally. I had the idea and thought about setting up a recycling plant to encourage firms to keep everything in the UK instead of exporting, which has the added bonus of reducing our carbon footprint.”

The 6,500 sq ft plant in Heywood has the capacity to recycle 300 tonnes per month and 4,000 tonnes annually. Maxine has now taken on three staff, including one apprentice. The plant will be recycling waste plastic from local businesses within the region to help with their recycling targets and ‘zero waste to landfill’ policies, it will also be accepting waste plastic from other businesses nationwide.

The finance for Maxine’s new venture was sourced through Access to Finance and Oldham-based business finance firm, PMD.

She said: “Through PMD, I was able to finance the equipment and machinery. I was surprised how quickly the finance came through, it was much faster than I thought and was a really easy and smooth process.”

Maxine added: “Everything has happened very quickly, when people find out what I do and what industry I’m in, I do get a surprised reaction sometimes as it is a typically male-dominated industry, but it’s definitely a good talking point.”