Low Carbon: Paper-based food and drink cartons can now be recycled more efficiently in Shropshire

By Sarah Griffiths on Aug 20, 09 12:39 PM in News

PAPER-BASED food and drink cartons can now be recycled more efficiently across the county.

Containers for recycling Tetra Pak and other cartons will be appearing across Shropshire this month.

Recycling banks for cartons have been in place across the county for more than a year, but they will be replaced by Recresco, which works in partnership with Shropshire Council and the council's waste contractor, Veolia Environmental Services.

Recresco will collect the cartons from the new banks using an innovative vacuum technology to 'suck' them out.

Each year Shropshire residents consume millions of paper-based cartons for milk, juice, sauces and other liquid foods and drinks.

David Roberts, Shropshire Council's cabinet member for local environment and economy, said: "A typical household uses about 2kg of these food and drink cartons every year. I hope people will make use of these fantastic new containers to recycle their cartons rather than throwing them in the bin."

Donald Macphail, managing director of Veolia Shropshire, said the new banks will be more user-friendly and he hopes they will encourage residents to recycle their cartons - which will help increase the county's overall recycling figures.

Locally, new containers will be placed at the household recycling centre, Waymills Industrial Estate, Whitchurch; the lorry park off High Street, Wem; and the car park in Talbot Street, Ellesmere.

Baled cartons are dropped into a pulper, like a giant food mixer, filled with water and pulped for about 20 minutes. This delaminates the packaging, breaking down the package to produce a grey-brown slurry. The paper is recovered to make new paper products.

The picture shows Cllr David Roberts.

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