According to the notice, dispatched on 2 October, the contract commenced on 20 September. It covers paper sourced from the council’s kerbside collections, household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) and recycling points as well as commercial customers, the contract award notice explained.
Smurfit Kappa was one of the two companies tendering for the contract. The deal was previously held by Wyllie Recycling. The council acquired the collections business of Wyllie in 2019 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Under the contract, Smurfit Kappa is to collect the material from the local authority’s Friarton Depot in Perth. The notice didn’t specify the length of the contract or the volumes of material. However, it noted that the lot awarded to Smurfit Kappa is “expected to be income generating”.
North Lanarkshire
The deal with Perth and Kinross council comes less than a month after Smurfit Kappa also won a £1.6 million deal with North Lanarkshire (see letsrecycle.com story).
This deal is set to run up to 30 September 2025, with the option to extend for a further 12 months. The North Lanarkshire contract will see Smurfit Kappa treat 10,000 tonnes of material annually, with the deal valued at £1.572 million over the entire three years, valuing the material at around £53 a tonne.
Smurfit Kappa has two facilities in Scotland, with a recycling facility in Glasgow and a facility in Tannochside which specialises in high quality printed packaging.
It also runs a nationwide network of paper mills where paper is recycled for Smurfit Kappa’s packaging division (see letsrecycle.com story).
The company has been contacted for comment.
Market
Smurfit Kappa is rumoured to be moving aggressively in the Scottish market to secure access to recycled paper ahead of Eren re-entering the market when the first phase of its Shotton redevelopment programme is due to be complete next year.
Eren agreed to acquire Shotton Mill in Flintshire, North Wales, from UPM Shotton in May 2021 (see letsrecycle.com story ). From 1 October that year, production of newsprint at the site was ceased,
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