Greenstar WES Boss in Top 50 in UK Packaging Industry
15th June 2009 – James Donaldson, founder and managing director of plastics recycling innovator Greenstar WES, is one of the top 50 people in Britain’s packaging industry.
The accolade, by Packaging News magazine (www.packagingnews.co.uk), crowns a ‘brilliant’ few months for the Redcar-based firm that led the world in devising and adapting technologies that enable more types and volumes of plastics to be reused and recycled.
Greenstar WES (www.thewesgroup.co.uk) was first in the world to commercially produce recycled HDPE plastic that is now being used to make new plastic milk bottles and food trays, and was also the first to successfully take on the recycling of plasticised crisp packets.
Earlier this year, Greenstar WES won a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category for its recycling technology wizardry.
James, who founded Greenstar WES in 1997, entered Packaging News’ Power 50 list at number 36, and the magazine said of him: The key to improving the public perception of plastic packaging is undoubtedly improving recycling rates and Greenstar WES is a leading light in this field. James Donaldson has been at the heart of efforts to turn HDPE and films that are heavily contaminated by print back into usable material. Most recently, the firm won a contract to supply Nampak with food-grade HDPE for use in Marks & Spencer milk bottles. As a colleague, Donaldson is described as ‘highly passionate’ about what he does and a ‘good guy to work with’. "His enthusiasm is endless," says one source.
Ian Wakelin, CEO of recycling-led waste management company Greenstar UK which bought a majority stake in WES in 2007, added: “James’s inventiveness and sheer dogged determination to find new and better ways to recycle plastics has put the company at the forefront of recycling this valuable material."
“Greenstar WES has had a brilliant few months as its technology investment bears commercial fruit, and it’s very appropriate that this latest honour goes to the man who leads his team by example and by making it happen.”