Chesterfield engineer wins 'unsung hero' award for recycled plastics project

Danny Kelk, who lives in Chesterfield and works at injecting moulding packaging company Plastek UK Ltd in Forest Town, Mansfield, scooped the prestigious award at the Plastics Industry Awards 2022 this month.

The winners were announced on Friday, November 18, by comedian and writer Andy Parsons at a black-tie gala evening at the Intercontinental in London.

The 33-year-old project engineer was presented with the ‘Unsung Hero’ award for his work during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he developed a number of systems to enable his company to use recycled material instead of plastic.

Danny said: “Our company makes plastic lids for a number of leading deodorant brands.

“We had a huge project going to try and use recycled plastics instead of virgin plastics. I worked on developing these camera systems so we can transfer over to recycled and it costs the customer no money.

“Often the hard part is getting the customer to switch over to using recycled plastic because it can potentially cost millions, but with this thing we set up it was completely free – it just took a lot of our time.

“At times it was a nightmare, especially because it was during Covid.

“But since then, we’ve converted 1,300 tonnes of plastic into recycled plastic. It’s been so successful.”

Danny started as an apprentice at the company when he was 16 years old and has worked his way up to project engineer, now working with many major household brands.

He said the new initiative has potential to make a real difference, with saving the planet at the forefront of many minds right now.

“One of our customers is probably the biggest selling deodorant brand in the world,” Danny said.

“We want to move as much stuff as possible on to recycled plastics.

“I’m really chuffed about winning the award. Really proud. You do these jobs and you get so involved and now to realise that other people are actually impressed by it – it’s a massive thing.

“It was an honour to be a nominee with such a huge amount of talented people, never mind winning. I get the chance to work with talented people everyday and together we will continue to build the circular economy.”