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Luxus And Polypipe Support The Next Plastics Generation With Apprenticeship Scheme

20th January 2016

 
Industry leading technical compounder and recycler, Luxus and its partner plastics piping manufacturer Polypipe have launched a ‘Compounding Polymer Apprenticeship’ scheme to help solve the ‘skills gap’ in the plastics industry.
 
The first group of three apprentice technicians – Callum Ely (16), James Laurence (22) from Luxus and Kamil Ostrowski (22) from Polypipe have begun the new two year multi-site apprenticeship in polymer processing. It is delivered in partnership with training provider, Solutions4Polymers and funded by Cogent.
 
The new scheme is part of the Government’s ‘Trailblazer Apprenticeship Standards’ initiative launched earlier this year. Its aim is to help develop apprenticeships in direct consultation with employers to ensure that training is directly relevant to industry needs.
 
The long standing industry partners, Luxus and Polypipe decided to be ‘early adopters’ of this initiative as there is a genuine lack of apprenticeships and training dedicated to polymer processing - particularly at the sub degree level. The new scheme will offer therefore an effective means of developing the skills of their workforce.
 
Simon Thompson, Quality Manager at Luxus, comments: “We are really pleased to offer this new scheme to our technicians. It has been widely reported that we are facing a chronic skills shortage in engineering talent in the UK, which is particularly acute in the plastics industry.
 
“This partnership with Polypipe will benefit the apprentices from both businesses. They will be able to learn about the various types of thermoplastics and their processing characteristics in our ‘state of the art’ Technical Centre right through to subsequent processes; such as injection moulding to develop the finished pipe component at Polypipe’s Horncastle plant.
 
“It will not only help ensure the availability of skilled staff in the future, but most importantly, it will provide the opportunity for us to award the progress our apprentices make too.”
 
Andy Barnard, Managing Director at Solutions4Polymers, said: “Although engineering training is well catered for, we have seen the need for industry specific plastics processing training in the market. We are therefore, pleased to help develop a scheme from scratch and are looking forward to seeing their progress over the next two years.”
 
If you are interested in a career with Luxus please visit: www.luxus.co.uk

Ends

Notes to editors

For further information please contact: Sasha Stewart, Straight Talk PR, tel: 07764 346 896 or email: sasha@straighttalkpr.co.uk

Luxus Ltd        
UK leading independent technical plastics recycling and compounding company Luxus has been developing highly specified thermoplastics compounds based on prime and recycled feedstocks for 50 years. Luxus is a key supplier to the major names in the global auto industry and it was the first and still is the only UK business to achieve approval for its recycled grades in car interior trims.
Luxus also offers specialist ‘closed loop’ and ‘open loop’ recycling services to manage ‘end of life’ post industrial and consumer waste for the retail transit packaging, construction and local authority wheel bin markets.

Polypipe Group Plc
Polypipe is the largest manufacturer in the United Kingdom, and among the ten largest manufacturers in Europe, of plastic pipe systems for the residential, commercial, civils and infrastructure sectors by revenue. We operate from 16 facilities in total, and with over 20,000 product lines, we manufacture the United Kingdom's widest range of plastic piping systems within our target markets. We primarily target the UK, French and Irish building and construction markets with a presence in Italy and the Middle East and sales to specific niches in the rest of the world.


Published 21 Jan 2016 Back to previous
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