DOZENS of people have been made redundant after a Swindon engineering company which aimed to revolutionise the recycling of plastic went into administration.

Most of the 73 people who worked for Recycling Technologies Group have lost their jobs as the business struggled to find enough funding to develop its patented new way of turning waste into re-usable plastic.

Some staff have been retained to assist the joint administrators with the closing down of its sites in Swindon and Scotland.

Recycling Technologies formed in 2011 and developed a patented way of mass-recycling plastic waste into a new material so that it could be turned back into plastic rather than end up in landfill sites.

The business has its headquarters in Swindon along with a manufacturing facility and pilot plant, as well as another site in Perthshire.

Joint administrator Nick Holloway said: “Our immediate priority is to assist those members of staff who have been made redundant, providing them with the support and information they need to make claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.

“We will also be looking to realise the assets of the business and its intellectual property, and would encourage any interested parties to contact us as soon as possible.”

The pilot plant for the advanced recycling of polystyrene was expected to be up and running in the second half of 2022, and had been hailed as the first of its kind in Europe.

Bosses had spent the last few months trying to find extra investment to complete the development phase of its RT7000 machine, with the aim of having the first commercial-scale machine ready by this December and then mass producing it for companies around the world.

Last November, the Adver reported that Recycling Technologies had secured major industry and financial partners to provide third-party validation of the technology and business model and a spring-board for growth, including petrochemicals company Neste, the Althelia Sustainable Oceans Fund, and Mars, Nestle and Unilever.

But the process to find extra funding was unsuccessful in the end and the directors have since decided to file for administration.

Last Monday, Nick Holloway and Will Wright from Interpath Advisory were appointed joint adminstrators to Recycling Technologies Group plc, and Recycling Technologies Limited Operations then ceased immediately and most of the workforce were let go.

The process Recycling Technologies came up with turns hard-to-recycle plastic waste into an oil which can be sold as a chemical stock known as Plaxx.