A manufacturer that transforms waste plastic into furniture and decorative panels is planning to double its workforce after moving to a new home in Swansea.
Smile Plastics takes materials including plastic bottles and yoghurt pots and uses them to create plastic panels that can be used in furniture and in interiors from showrooms to homes. the company, which also makes side tables and chopping boards, has clients including Mercedes-Benz and fashion brand Ganni.
Smile is based in Crofty Industrial Estate, North Gower, but now has planning permission to move to a former factory at Swansea West Business Park, Fforestfach, as it seeks to expand.
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Emily Skinner, Smile's customer experience manager, said the company’s workforce was currently between 25 and 32 and that the aim was to more than double it by the end of 2023.
The business works with various plastics and types of paper, among other materials, and that over the years has worked with CDs, coffee grounds and electric cabling sheath – as long as the waste wasn’t metal or heavily contaminated.
Plastic remains its main ingredient, with Smile saying its overall aim is to create desirable products from something perceived as low value or just waste.
The company has had funding from the Welsh Government, which wants Wales to be a zero waste county by 2050, plus private sector investors.
Emily said one of the two pioneers who explored turning plastics into creative products many years ago, Colin Williamson, was an adviser until recently - and that Smile Plastics' machines included ones called Colin 1, Colin 2 and Colin 3.
The co-founders of Smile Plastics are Adam Fairweather, who is technical director, and managing director Rosalie McMillan.
Rosalie said: “The investment that we have received has enabled us to accelerate the scaling up of our operation through taking on an additional factory and production line at a pivotal time for us.
“We will be tripling our capacity over the next year and offering an enhanced service to our growing customer base.”
A planning statement submitted as part of Smile Plastics’s planning application to Swansea Council said the business was developing an apprenticeship programme and also helped community groups.
Work to relocate the company to the new site – the former Michton factory – is expected to get under way in the final three months of this year.
