After signing an agreement recently with Sonoco Alcore to establish the UK’s only beverage carton recycling plant, the Alliance for Beverage Cartons & the Environment (ACE UK) has signed up its first customer.
Northern Ireland’s Bryson Recycling will send its bales of used beverage cartons to the 25,000 tonne per annum plant in West Yorkshire.
Currently, Bryson Recycling collected beverage cartons from 68,000 households in Northern Ireland, which are then sorted at its materials recycling facility before being shipped to Sweden.
When the new plant becomes operational in West Yorkshire in 2013, lorries used to transport coreboard from the Sonoco Alcore mill in West Yorkshire to its converting factory in Lurgan, County Armagh will likely be backloaded with used beverage cartons from Bryson.
Bryson Recycling director Eric Randall said: “The ability to reprocess beverage cartons in the UK is great news for us and our local authority partners. At the heart of everything we do is the triple bottom line approach: social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and economic viability.
“Our agreement with ACE UK and Sonoco Alcore puts a big tick in all these boxes, so we’re delighted to be leading the pack as the first to sign-up.”
ACE UK recycling operations manager Fay Dashper said: “While collection coverage for beverage cartons is already high, we know from our discussions with local authorities that a UK-based reprocessing solution makes the switch to kerbside collection more appealing.
“Nevertheless, even we are surprised at the level of interest received from MRF operators in the plant and the UK-based market it creates for used beverage cartons.”
