BASF hosts Earl of Caithness
in state-of-the-art recycling facility

The team at BASF Metals Recycling Ltd, Cinderford was delighted to welcome The Rt Hon. the Earl of Caithness to the site on 27 January 2023.

As part of the Industry and Parliament Fellowship programme the Earl was also given a tour of BASF’s state-of-the-art recycling facility, a site fully dedicated to the recovery of precious metals from spent automotive catalytic converters.  

BASF Site Manager, Chris Turner was proud to explain the role of the plant. “It was a real pleasure to welcome the Earl of Caithness to Cinderford. Our operations are the first important step in the process of recycling precious metals such as platinum, palladium and rhodium. We are proud to be enabling a more circular economy for these precious resources contained in spent automotive catalytic converters as the metals recovered in this facility are then further processed and re-used to make new products.”

The Earl of Caithness commented, “At a time when the recycling and minimisation of waste have never been more important, it was a pleasure to visit BASF’s world leading recycling plant which is not only setting the highest quality standards, demonstrating the benefits that a circular economy can bring to all but also offering great local employment opportunities. I am delighted such a business is located here in the UK.”

BASF’s Senior Sustainability Manager, UK & Ireland, Tony Heslop joined the meeting, delighted to discuss metals and the circular economy.  Tony Heslop said, “Society’s reliance on a take-make-dispose linear model means that we continue to use the Earth’s finite resources. Our Cinderford site is an example of how circularity can be used to capture precious materials and use them again many times over.”