New beverage carton recycling scheme is first for Wolverhampton
Released: 18 September 2007
Wolverhampton City Council in partnership with Enterprise Plc and in conjunction with Tetra Pak Ltd and the carton industry body ACE UK (Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment), is launching a new beverage carton recycling scheme throughout Wolverhampton this week to give residents the opportunity to recycle even more of their household rubbish.
Each year, UK beverage carton manufacturers produce approximately 55,000 tonnes of paper-based cartons for milk and juices, and increasingly even chopped tomatoes and wine. This equates to around 2.3kg of cartons per household* which could be recycled instead of thrown in the rubbish bin. In response, Wolverhampton City Council has worked with the carton industry to establish carton collection points at its Household Waste Recycling Centres in Shaw Road and Anchor Lane for residents to take their empty cartons to be recycled.
Even though cartons cannot be placed into green kerbside recycling boxes in Wolverhampton, the new project means that used cartons can now be recycled through special collection bins (taking paper-based cartons only) at Shaw Road, Bushbury and Anchor Lane, Coseley. Once collected they are taken away to be baled and transported to a recycling mill. They can be recycled into a number of different products, ranging from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes.
The introduction of carton collection in the city follows a long line of improvements that have been made over the past year to the Household Waste Recycling Centres. These include the introduction of specialist facilities for the recycling of all electrical equipment, new containers for textiles and plastic recycling.
Councillor Pat Byrne, said: “The residents of Wolverhampton have always responded well to the different recycling schemes we’ve implemented across the City, but we’ve still got some tough targets to meet, both as a City and as a nation. We’re delighted that Tetra Pak and the carton industry is supporting us to help increase the number of cartons recycled in our City and if the initial trial is successful, we’d like to see the project rolled out further.”
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 Wolverhampton 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 Wolverhampton takes us and households in the area one step closer to achieving that.”
Since April last year, the UK carton industry has made £1.5million available to help local authorities interested in starting up carton collection schemes in their area. There are already over 280 district areas collecting cartons, which will result in a national network of coverage during the next 18 months. The carton industry continues to work 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.
For more information on recycling in Wolverhampton call City Direct (01902 551155) or visit www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/recycling . For more information on beverage carton recycling, visit www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk.
Issued on behalf of Tetra Pak by the press office.