New drink carton recycling scheme for Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire County Council, in conjunction with Tetra Pak Ltd and the carton industry body ACE UK (Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment), has launched a new beverage carton recycling scheme throughout Monmouthshire to give residents the opportunity to recycle even more household rubbish.
Each year, UK beverage carton manufacturers produce approximately 55,000 tonnes of paper-based cartons for milk, juice, sauces and other liquid foods/drinks. This equates to around 2.3kg of cartons per household which could be recycled instead of thrown in the rubbish bin. In response, Monmouthshire is working with the carton industry to establish carton collection points at key recycling centres 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 at:
- Little Mill Village Hall, Little Mill
- Pandy Village Hall,Pandy
- Queenshill Garages,Dingestow,Monmouth
- Withy Close,Magor
- Fairfield Carpark,Abergavenny
- Severn Bridge Social Club,Bulwark,Chepstow
Once collected they can be taken away to be baled, 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 follows a long line of improvements that have been made over the past year.
County Councillor Eric Saxon, said: “The residents of Monmouthshire have always responded well to the different recycling schemes we’ve implemented across the county, but we’ve still got some tough targets to meet, both as a county 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 county. 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 Monmouthshire 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 Monmouthshire 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 approximately 100 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 beverage carton recycling, visit www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk