WASTE MANAGEMENT & RECYCLING
MAKING RECYCLING GREENE Nicola Peake, May Gurney
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n a pioneering move to ensure the company controls a large proportion of its own ‘green’ supply chain, Coca-Cola have recently announced that it is to invest in a new recycling
facility, in partnership with ECO Plastics, which will double the amount of recycled PET-grade plastic produced in the UK. PET-grade processing produces a
product of ‘food-grade quality’, and Coca-Cola’s joint investment means that it will be able to source all of its recycled plastic for domestic bottling from the UK, rather than having to import it. By doing this, Coca-Cola will meet its own target of ensuring that it uses 25% PET in all its plastic packaging by 2012 – while also dramatically reducing the amount of recycling that has to travel abroad to be processed to PET standards before being imported back again. Indeed, the plant will increase the amount of PET-grade plastic recycling in the UK from 35,000 tonnes to 75,000 tonnes. Coca-Cola’s partner in this initiative, ECO Plastics, is no stranger to meeting such ambitious targets. The firm is
SUSTAINABLE FM | APRIL 2011
already set to almost double the total tonnage of plastic recycling in the UK, with its Hemswell plant capable of reprocessing 140,000 tonnes of plastic bottles per annum, out of a UK-wide capacity of 300,000 tonnes. This is a very visible example of a growing trend. Food-grade quality recycled material is a huge growth market. The UK is seeing a dramatic increase in demand for higher quality recycled products as companies strive to meet carbon emission targets and demonstrate environmental responsibility. However, the production of high quality recycled packaging, such as food- grade PET standard material, relies on better initial collection of recyclables that is cleaner and less contaminated. The demand for high quality material at the processing stage means that much of the PET-material used in the packaging of products we consume is actually imported. Also the demand for pure material does not just apply to plastics. Recently concerns were raised when Swiss researchers found that food was being
contaminated by toxic chemicals in packaging produced from recycled newspapers. Some cereal brands have already started using virgin cardboard as a result of this, and the recycling industry needs to take action to ensure that these risks are removed by the separation of newspaper from other card materials at the kerbside, so uncontaminated recycled card can be produced.
With growing demand for low-carbon packaging and uncontaminated, high quality recyclables, alongside the disincentives for putting used material into landfill, attention is likely to shift towards reducing the carbon footprint and improving the quality of the entire recycling process, from cradle to cradle. This has already led to a range of local authorities engaging in new and innovative recycling schemes. Kerbside collection schemes, which ensure less contamination at collection and therefore provide much more usable materials for processors, are becoming ever-more valuable and also more crucial as the UK produces more high quality recycled products. Indeed, the difference in value between types of collected
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