Trowbridge, England, UK: Wiltshire County Council, in conjunction with Hills Waste Solutions, Tetra Pak Ltd and the carton industry body ACE UK (Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment), has started a new beverage carton recycling scheme this month for residents.
People will be able to take their cartons to any of the ten household recycling centres (HRCs) in the county as well as other recyclable items.
Every year, UK beverage carton manufacturers produce around 55,000 tonnes of paper-based cartons, equating to approximately 2.3kg of cartons per household (based on 54 cartons per person, per annum).
Wiltshire County Council is working with the carton industry and has set up carton collection points at the HRCs for residents to take their empty cartons to be recycled.
The new project means that used cartons can now be recycled through special collection bins taking paper-based cartons only.
Andy Conn, waste services manager at Wiltshire County Council, said:
“People in Wiltshire are always looking at how they can recycle more and I’m delighted that we can give them these new facilities.
“We looked at how we could introduce a service that would be effective and also financially viable and it was clear that using our household recycling centres was the best answer.
“On top of our expanded kerbside recycling scheme, our longer opening hours at the recycling centres and the promotion of food waste digesters it’s another example of how the county council is working with residents to recycle more.”
Since April last year, the UK carton industry has made £1.5million available to help local authorities and cartons can now be recycled in 82% of the UK. Tetra Pak plans to achieve national coverage by the end of this year. The carton industry is working with new paper mills to trial carton recycling to ensure the industry can cater for this increase in carton recycling, as more areas come on board.
Collection, recycling and carbon offsetting
The Tetra Pak cartons can be recycled into a number of different products, ranging from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes.
The cartons will be taken to a regional hub until there is enough for them to go the paper mill for pulping.
At the moment paper mills in the UK cannot cope with the volume of Tetra Pak cartons so they are shipped to Sweden. Trials are ongoing to establish a UK destination but in the meantime Tetra Pak says that it carbon offsets its sea trips.
Richard Hands, Environment Manager at Tetra Pak Ltd and chairman of ACE UK, added:
“Whilst cartons are successfully recycled in large volumes for many years throughout Europe, the UK has a long way to go. It’s therefore fantastic news that Wiltshire is taking a lead by adding cartons to the list of materials collected for recycling and we very much hope that the initiative is successful. We and our industry partners are committed to increasing the level of carton recycling in the UK with the aim of reaching a national network of carton collection by the end of 2008. Our work with Wiltshire County Council and Hills Waste Solutions takes us and households in the area one step closer to achieving that.”
Further information
For more information on recycling in Wiltshire visit www.recycleforwiltshire.com. For more details on Tetra Pak and their recycling policies see www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk.
The Carton Recycling Process
Beverage cartons are made up of three main materials:
Paperboard (typically 70-90%)
Low-density polyethylene (typically 10-25%)
Aluminium foil (about 5%, only in long life or aseptic packages)
Baled cartons are dropped into a pulper filled with water and pulped for around 20 minutes. This delaminates the packaging, breaking down the package to produce a grey-brown slurry. The aluminium foil and polyethylene are separated from the fibre, which is recovered to make new paper products.
Generally in paper reprocessing, the wood fibres become shorter and lose some strength every time they are recycled, limiting recycling to about five times. Hence there always has to be an input of virgin material into the papermaking process to maintain quality.
However, because of cartons’ long, high-strength fibres, they reduce the need to buy virgin pulp. In the UK, the recovered fibre is used to manufacture new high-strength products such as paper carrier bags and envelopes according to Tetra Pak.
The polyethylene and a smaller amount of aluminium, have been used elsewhere in a number of applications including garden furniture, playground design, roofing materials and for energy recovery in municipal incinerators and cement kilns.
Tetra Pak and its partners are also currently developing plasma technology which enables the total separation of the polyethylene and aluminium. This allows the return of all three components of the carton to the productive chain as raw material.
For further information see www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk
ACE UK
ACE UK – the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment UK – represents the leading beverage carton packaging manufacturers for the UK market in environmental policy and activity developments.
It consists of representatives from three carton manufacturers – Tetra Pak, SIG Combibloc and Elopak.
Tetra Pak Ltd
Tetra Pak - operating in more than 165 markets with 21,100 employees - says it is committed to making food safe and available, everywhere. The company also says it believes in responsible industry leadership, creating profitable growth in harmony with environmental sustainability and good corporate citizenship.