Borough Council Offering New Recycling Points for Tetra Pak

Residents of the Borough may have noticed mysterious looking, large black steel containers appearing around the Borough.  Don’t panic, its not an alien invasion.  Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council have been successfully working in partnership with the private sector to enable more domestic waste materials to be recycled.  The latest addition to the mix is the installation of new bring banks for Tetra Pak and other paper based liquid food and drink cartons.  

Cllr. Mrs. Judith Williams, Portfolio Holder for Recycling at Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, commented

"Though Tetra Pak makes up only a very small fraction of Shrewsbury and Atcham’s household waste stream, it is significant for the consumer because it is bulky.  Combined with the environmental benefits of recycling the mainly paper content of these cartons, we have been actively trying to facilitate more recycling of this type of packaging for a while now. 

It’s great news for the householders in Shrewsbury that we can now help them recycle more stuff, more often by offering these new facilities.  This highlights our ability to work in partnership on waste issues to achieve sustainable and cost effective ways to boost recycling in the area".

Tetra Pak beverage cartons consist of three main materials:

• Paperboard (typically 70-90%)
• Low-density polyethylene [LDPE] (typically 10-25%)
• Aluminium foil (about 5%, only in long life or aseptic packages)

By far and away the vast majority of the carton is fully recyclable high quality virgin clean white paperboard which can be re-pulped and turned into fresh paper.   Unfortunately the layers of plastic and metal foil on the cartons makes it harder to recover the paper, but it can be done.  

Tetra Pak are currently running trials with four UK mills but until the results are available, the cartons are currently being baled into mill-sized bales and collected into 26-tonne loads then shipped over to Sweden en masse.  There they are pulped and the fibres are recovered and recycled, whilst the plastic and any aluminium are used to make Refuse Derived Fuel, pellets which are burnt to provide heat and power for the recycling factory.

We will working closely with Tetra Pak and the paper mills to continually review this arrangement and be strongly encouraging the use of UK based reprocessors when this is possible.

As such new bring sites have been installed at:

• Asda, on Old Potts Way
• Co-op in Radbrook Green
• Sainsbury’s on Meole Brace Retail Park
• Frankwell Carpark by the Guildhall
• Minsterley at the Parish Hall

Its all been made possible thanks to The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment in the UK (ACE UK), launching a £1.2 million National Recycling Fund to help dramatically boost beverage carton recycling in the UK.  Agreed between member companies Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc, this fund has substantially increased industry support to local authorities, paper mills and other organisations in order to help them establish carton collections.

The aspiration of the group is to use the fund to encourage more local authorities to run more collections for their packaging in order to meet the consumer demand and help overcome the waste issues associated with their product. 

Regular (weekly) collection of the materials from the bring sites will be made by ABITITI a large international waste management company based at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.  Collection will utilise a compaction vehicle on a milk-round basis. 

You can find extra information on these two websites:
http://www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk/   
http://www.tetrapak.com/

Remember, producing paper from recycled pulp saves around 70 per cent of the energy required to produce virgin paper.  This means that there are massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions associated with paper recycling.  For every tonne of paper sent for recycling the savings are estimated to be as much as:

• 30,000 litres of water
• 3,500 KWh electricity (enough for an average 3 bedroom house for one year)
• 95% of various air pollutants.

Thanks to Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and Tetra Pak taking the initiative on this scheme, one way the people of Shrewsbury can now help to ‘do their bit’ is to take cartons to the afore mentioned bring bank locations in the town.  In addition to the Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council sites, Tetra Pak can be recycled at the new Tesco Eco-store in Sundorne and at the County Councils Household Recycling Centre in Battlefield.

Additional notes for editors -

Food and beverage cartons, similar to those used today, were first commercially produced in America in the 1930’s. Currently they are used to package a wide range of products including: milk, fruit juice, cream, custard, detergents, soup and wine. 

The carton is a lightweight, low-resource use, energy saving package designed to impact minimally on the environment throughout its lifecycle, using less fossil fuel energy in production than other forms of liquid packaging.   The readily stackable nature of the container also optimising efficiency with regards to transport logistics making them less energy intense to move around. 

Cartons are the only drinks packaging in the UK made from a renewable source, the predominant material being wood fibre, grown in sustainably managed Scandinavian forests.   Life cycle analysis studies have consistently shown that Tetra Pak has a lower carbon footprint and lesser ecological impact than all alternative packages.

The chap that invented them even won a Nobel Prize for this contribution to the world. 

Carton recycling

Despite their environmental credentials, there is an inherent complexity with regards to recycling composite materials.  So for many years now to the frustration of waste managers, consumers and the food packaging industry alike these have been considered not suitable for recycling.  It is however totally possible, though the UK is performing badly, cartons are successfully recycled throughout Europe, where high quality wood-derived fibres have consistently been valued by the market.

More details on the recycling process

Once baled, cartons are shipped to Scandanavia then delivered to the plant where they are dropped into a pulper, similar to a domestic liquidiser, filled with water, and agitated for around 20 minutes. This delaminates the packaging, breaking down the fibre to produce a grey-brown slurry.  The wood fibres, which makes up between 75-90 per cent of a typical carton, is then used to manufacture new paper products.

The non-fibre remainder, which is mainly polyethelyene and a smaller amount of aluminium on some packages is used to manufacture Refuse Derived Fuel, which is burnt to provide the ‘’carbon neutral’’ heat and power for the recycling factory. 

For more detailed information on Tetra Pak contact Janet Burgess, Recycling Officer, Tetra Pak Ltd, Bedwell Road, Cross Lanes, Wrexham, LL13 0UT on 0870 442 6079.