Recycling of beverage cartons by local authorities hits 91%

By Laurence Gibbons

- Last updated on GMT

Almost all (91%) UK local authorities now collect beverage cartons for recycling
Almost all (91%) UK local authorities now collect beverage cartons for recycling

Related tags Local authorities Recycling

A whopping 91% of UK local authorities now collect beverage cartons for recycling, the Alliance of Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) has revealed.

Of the UK local authorities collecting beverage cartons, 60% pick them up from kerbside, a 15-fold increase on 2006 levels when just 4% of local authorities collected cartons at kerbside.

This figure reaches 91% when cartons collected from ACE UK’s bring-bank system are included.  

The remaining 9% represents local authorities that do not collect beverage cartons – currently 371 of the 406 local authorities do collect drinks cartons.

This represents and follows sustained, close co-operation between ACE UK, local authorities and consumer groups, ACE UK claimed.  

Danger

Jane Bevis, chair of the On-Pack Recycling Label scheme (OPRL), said with household recycling rates in danger of stalling this was really important news.

“We know the easier you make it for consumers to recycle, the more that gets recycled,” ​she said. “We applaud the hard work of so many local authorities working in partnership with ACE UK to put these kerbside services in place. 

“Combined with OPRL members providing clear on-pack advice on how cartons can be recycled, these efforts make it more likely we can hit 2020 recycling targets.”

The Norfolk Waste Partnership, comprising Norfolk County Council and the seven district councils, was the latest organisation to start collecting cartons at kerbside. This pushed the percentage of UK local authorities collecting cartons at kerbside to 60%.

Adrian Akester, technical adviser to Norfolk Waste Partnership, praised the “fantastic work”​ by all eight Norfolk councils in launching a new recycling scheme on October 1 2014.

“It means all households now have the opportunity to recycle far more materials at the kerbside than ever before with the aim of increasing our collective recycling rate by five to 10%,”​ he said.

“So far the response has been excellent and we will all continue to work hard to divert as much waste as possible from landfill.”

‘Extremely pleased’

Richard Hands, chief executive of ACE UK, said its members – Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc – were extremely pleased that Norfolk’s strategy to increase kerbside collection had paid dividends.

ACE UK has also launched its re:cartons campaign​ to help further increase carton recycling across the UK.

“Through the creation of a clear, easy to understand identity that everyone can immediately associate with beverage carton recycling, it will act as a platform to promote even greater carton recycling across the country,” ​Hands said.  

Meanwhile, last year, ACE opened the UK’s first beverage carton recycling facility​ at Stainland, West Yorkshire.

The site is capable of recycling 25,000t of cartons sorted from household and commercial waste streams and receives cartons from 38%of local authorities through kerbside and the bring-bank scheme.

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