Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

Wiltshire residents recycle more than a million Tetra Pak cartons.
People in Wiltshire have recycled more than a million Tetra Pak beverage cartons during the first year of a successful scheme.

Bins were introduced at the county’s ten household recycling centres last July for the drink cartons which are used to hold milk, soup and other food-based liquids. Previously the cartons had been sent to landfill.

In the first year more than 23 tonnes has been recycled which works out at around 1.1 million cartons.

Mr Toby Sturgis, cabinet member for waste and the environment, said: “We are always looking at new services we can offer residents to help them recycle more. We looked at how we could introduce a service that would be effective and also financially viable and it was clear that using our household recycling centres was the best answer. I am delighted to see that offering to take Tetra Pak cartons has proved very popular and diverted a significant amount of waste that would otherwise be buried in the ground.”

The carton industry estimates that annually in Wiltshire some 23 million cartons will be used – meaning there is still plenty of scope for people to recycle even more.

Cartons which have been washed and squashed by residents are dropped off in the bins and then collected for reprocessing. They provide the raw materials which can be turned into many other products such as paper bags, envelopes, and plasterboard liner. The cartons have to be collected separately because the waxy material which makes them watertight makes them unsuitable for recycling with cardboard.

The scheme is a joint initiative between Wiltshire Council, Tetra Pak Ltd., Hills Waste Solutions and the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE).