Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

Wiltshire in the van for recycling.
People in Wiltshire will be able to recycle their Tetra Pak cartons for the first time this month.

Wiltshire County Council, in conjunction with Hills Waste Solutions, Tetra Pak Ltd and the carton industry body ACE UK (Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment), has started a new beverage carton recycling scheme this month to give residents the opportunity to recycle even more of their household rubbish.

People will be able to take their cartons to any of the ten household recycling centres (HRCs) in the county along with the two dozen other items they can already recycle there.

Every year, UK beverage carton manufacturers produce approximately 55,000 tonnes of paper-based cartons for milk and juices, and increasingly even chopped tomatoes and wine. This equates to around 2.3kg of cartons per household which could be recycled instead of being thrown in the rubbish bin.

In response, WCC is working with the carton industry and has set up carton collection points at the HRCs for residents to take their empty cartons to be recycled.

The new project means that used cartons can now be recycled through special collection bins (taking paper-based cartons only) at each of the HRCs. They can be recycled into a number of different products, ranging from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes.

Andy Conn, waste services manager at Wiltshire County Council, said: "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."

The new service will be monitored to check that bins are emptied often enough and the right cartons are being left there. The cartons will be taken to a regional hub until there is enough for them to go the paper mill for pulping.

At the moment paper mills in the UK cannot cope with the volume of Tetra Pak cartons so they are shipped to Sweden. Trials are ongoing to establish a UK destination but in the meantime Tetra Pak carbon offsets its sea trips.

Please remember: wash and squash your carton before recycling and only put paper-based liquid food and drinks cartons in the recycling bins, unless otherwise specified on the bin. No plastic, card, cans, glass, plastic bags or foil.