Recycling Technologies: What happened to collapsed Swindon company?

Recycling Technologies’ bosses spent much of 2022 trying to find more funding to finish the development of their RT7000 machine which turned plastic waste into a synthetic oil known as Plaxx that can be re-made into new plastic.

The engineering, research, and manufacturing company hoped to make plastic more sustainable as most plastic waste is buried in landfill, burned, or leaked into the environment at a cost to the waste manager.

Executives had hoped to have the first commercial-scale machine ready by the end of last year with the aim of mass-producing this technology to sell to major manufacturers around the world.

But, despite securing industry and financial partners to validate its business model in 2021 in preparation for this process, Recycling Technologies failed to find the extra investment it needed, so its directors filed for administration in September 2022.

Dozens of people immediately lost their jobs and the small number of the firm’s 79 staff who were kept on to assist administrators Interpath Advisory have since been made redundant.

In a progress report published earlier this year, joint administrator Nick Holloway explained that none of the 59 potential buyers who initially expressed interest in taking charge of Recycling Technologies ended up offering to buy the entire business.

Eight of the nine serious bidders dropped out and talks to sell the company to the final hopeful for a reported £1.1 million were not successful.

In the end, the offer accepted from the purchaser was just for assets such as the manufacturing plant and machinery.

Specialist news site MRW reports that the agreed sale totalled £310,000 and that the company had liabilities of £22.8m as well as realisable assets of less than £1m.

Between January and August of 2022, the company's accounts showed a loss of £5.6m and plans to float on the London Stock Exchange did not come to fruition.

The report added that it was unlikely there would be any payments to the creditors involved and that there was just £130,788 in the business’ bank account when administrators stepped in.

As for the future, Interpath Advisory will continue to manage the affairs of Recycling Technologies before the struggling firm is dissolved, such as paying the outstanding costs of the administration process and sorting out any tax and VAT requirements.

The empty Recycling Technologies HQ in Swindon (Image: Dave Cox)