Northern Irish recycling service provider, Bryson Recycling, has become the first company to sign up to recycle beverage cartons at the UK’s first beverage carton reprocessing plant.
The Alliance for Beverage Cartons & the Environment (ACE) UK, Tetra Pak, SIG Combibloc and Elopakannounced in June month that they had formed an agreement with paper and packaging producer Sonoco Alcore to establish the UK’s only beverage carton reprocessing plant in Stainland, West Yorkshire.
Bryson Recycling – which currently collects beverage cartons from kerbside schemes at 68,000 households in Newtownabbey, Ballymena and Carrickfergus – will start sending its bales of used beverage cartons to the 25,000 tonnes per annum plant in West Yorkshire once it becomes fully operational in early 2013. Beverage cartons collected by Bryson Recycling are currently sent via ACE UK for reprocessing in Sweden.
Eric Randall, Director at Bryson Recycling, announced the news, saying: “The ability to reprocess beverage cartons in the UK is great news for us and our local authority partners. At the heart of everything we do is the triple bottom line approach: social responsibility; environmental sustainability; and economic viability. Our agreement with ACE UK and Sonoco Alcore puts a big tick in all these boxes, so we’re delighted to be leading the pack as the first to sign up.”
It is hoped that the environmental impacts from transport will not only be reduced through processing the cartons in Yorkshire, but also through reverse logistics, making efficient use of the lorries that transport the coreboard from the new plant to the converting factory in Lurgan, County Armagh. These could then be used to pick up Bryson Recycling’s beverage carton bales on their return to Yorkshire.
ACE UK hopes that the new plant will create a UK market for the recycling of used beverage cartons and enable local authorities with no-export policies on waste to recycle cartons in the UK and further increase kerbside collection of beverage cartons.
“While collection coverage for beverage cartons is already high, we know from our discussions with local authorities that a UK-based reprocessing solution makes the switch to kerbside collection more appealing”, said Fay Dashper, Recycling Operations Manager at ACE UK, continuing: “Nevertheless, even we are surprised at the level of interest received from MRF operators in the plant and the UK-based market it creates for used beverage cartons.
“This interest is testimony to the firm commitment of our members – Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc – to constantly improve the environmental performance of their beverage cartons. We’re confident that by the end of Year One (December 2013) a further 10 local authorities will have started collecting cartons in their kerbside service, sending them to the new plant for recycling.”
Find out more about the beverage carton recycling plant.
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