The county council said if the scheme continues to be as popular as it has been, it will expand it to all of the recycling centres in Norfolk for the 2007/08 financial year.
 Norfolk is looking at including a requirement for carton recycling in a new CA site contract being developed |
Norfolk county council launched the trial in January 2006 at five of its 20 civic amenity sites, with 1,100 litre containers introduced at each site for residents to drop off their waste cartons.
The popularity of the scheme among householders has already led to the council ordering further containers for each of the sites currently running the service.
Originally collections were planned for once a month, but according to recycling supervisor Dan Jacobs, the bins have been filled so quickly that collections have been switched to once a fortnight. Between late February and September 2006, the banks have brought in just over a tonne of Tetra Pak cartons.
The cartons are collected by Thetford-based waste company Pearsons.
Reprocessing
Difficult to recycle because of they are made of fused paper, plastic and aluminium, most Tetra Pak cartons collected for recycling are now shipped to Norway and Sweden to be processed since the closure of the Smith Anderson reprocessing plant in Fife (see letsrecycle.com story).
Tetra Pak's recycling officer, Nick Mann said around three quarters of collected cartons are going abroad for reprocessing, though some UK paper mills are now getting involved.
Ms Mann said: “There are four paper mills in the UK trialling carton recycling, we also send some materials out to two carton specific recycling plants in northern Europe.”
Tetra Pak offers local authorities support for collecting cartons through a 300,000 fund launched earlier this year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Contract
Norfolk county council is now looking to include Tetra Pak recycling as part of a new contract being developed for the operation of its civic amenity sites.
“We are able to include the collection of Tetra Pak in the new contract,” said Mr Jacobs. “Whoever takes over the contract will be responsible for collecting the material as well as organising for it to be recycled. We should see Tetra banks at all 20 of our sites by April 1 2007.”
The Norfolk recycling supervisor said the cartons were not counting significantly towards government-set recycling targets, but were important for the profile of recycling among the public.
| Related links: |
Mr Jacobs said: “It is difficult to talk about the tonnage advantages of collecting Tetra Pak because it is very light. The value is that because of its volumes you can free up space in the residual bin.
“We have also had very positive feedback from residents and the collections have got us a lot of media attention,” he added.
Register for free to comment