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Organisations from across the paper cup supply chain have signed an agreement with the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE UK) to accelerate UK recycling of PE lined paper cups. The cross-industry collaboration will work towards delivering a long-term, nationwide paper cup recycling solution which complements and builds on the recycling activities achieved so far by the paper cup industry.

The companies signed up to the agreement are: Benders Paper Cups, Bunzl Catering Supplies, Caffe Nero, Costa Coffee, Dart Products Europe, Greggs, Huhtamaki, International Paper, McDonald’s UK, Nestlé, Pret A Manger, Seda Group, Starbucks, and Stora Enso.

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Using ACE UK’s extensive recycling expertise, gained running the beverage carton industry’s recycling programme, the fourteen companies will fund an activity programme which will give many more people access to recycling for paper cups. The programme includes: 

  • From 1st January 2018 all ACE UK bring banks will accept paper cups for recycling, delivering an additional 382 recycling points located in 97 local authorities across the UK. With a further 33 recycling points across an additional eight local authorities scheduled during the next phase.
  • Cups from these recycling points will be processed at ACE UK’s recycling facility in Halifax.
  • Drawing on its experience and existing relationships with local authorities, waste management organisations and recycling bodies, ACE UK will work to include cups in local authority kerbside collections. Currently 66% of local authorities collect beverage cartons at kerbside, in addition to those which collect through bring banks, and it is hoped to achieve similar levels of coverage for cups.

ACE UK has been successfully running the beverage carton industry’s recycling programme for the last ten years driving significant increases in carton recycling as part of its role as the UK beverage carton industry trade body. During this time it has worked closely with local authorities and waste management companies so that today 92% of local authorities collect beverage cartons for recycling through either bring banks or kerbside collection.

Commenting on the agreement Richard Hands, CEO of ACE UK said: “The paper cup industry is facing very similar recycling challenges to the ones the beverage carton industry faced when we started our programme ten years ago. Whilst our primary focus will remain on increasing beverage carton recycling, we believe our expertise, experience and existing relationships can help the paper cup industry create a step change in cup recycling. Whilst it is early days, we have a clear measured plan agreed and expect to see significant progress in cup recycling over the next two years and beyond.”

The agreement builds on activities implemented and supported during the last year by the companies involved, such as in-store cup recycling, single site and pilot recycling projects including ‘One More Shot’ and the ‘Square Mile Challenge’.

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Neil Whittall Global Category Director of Speciality Coffee at Huhtamaki UK, and chair of the Paper Cup Recycling and Recovery Group (PCRRG) said: “Whilst paper cups are fully recyclable, the industry recognises that many are not being recycled because of a lack of collection facilities. Companies across the industry have been working to address this barrier and increase cup recycling.

“This agreement with ACE UK represents a significant advance in UK recycling infrastructure for paper cups. It will also help us accelerate progress towards the PCRRG’s objective of ensuring the majority of the UK population have access to information, schemes and facilities to allow them to recycle their paper cup, as set out in our Paper Cup Manifesto.”

“Furthermore by generating greater volumes of cups for recycling this will create a market for the material, making cups more attractive to waste management companies and creating the potential for more schemes to be introduced to collect cups from a much wider range of locations such as offices and high street locations.”

Mike Turner MD, International Paper Foodservice Europe and chair of European packaging trade body Pack2Go added: “This collaborative agreement, funded entirely by the signatories, is a clear demonstration of the commitment of these organisations, from across the paper cup supply chain, to address the barriers to recycling and deliver practical solutions to maximise recycling of paper cups.”

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The beverage carton industry has welcomed the latest figures on beverage carton recycling in the EU, showing that 47% of cartons were recycled in 2016, continuing the unbroken, upward trend since 2005.

The figure is equivalent to approximately 430,000 tonnes, recycled at more than 20 paper mills in Europe. The total recovery rate (recycling and energy recovery) reached 76% for 2016.

Commenting, Annick Carpentier, Director General of the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) in Brussels said: “We are delighted to see this substantial increase in the recycling of cartons across Europe in 2016. Separate collection is a key element in any type of recycling, and the continued increase in the beverage carton recycling rate across Europe indicates that beverage cartons are increasingly being collected, allowing them to be recycled.”

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Significant progress has been made since the early nineties when ACE began tracking the recycling rate of beverage cartons in Europe. In particular, EU Member States with appropriate packaging collection systems in place are achieving increasingly high recycling volumes.

Richard Hands, Chief Executive of ACE UK, which represents carton manufacturers Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc in the UK, said: “Our sector is committed to supporting and promoting beverage carton recycling and the continuing upward trend in the EU carton recycling rate in 2016 is good news.

In the UK our focus has been on building access to recycling facilities for all. This year we hit our milestone of two out of every three or 66 % of UK local authorities collecting beverage cartons at kerbside for recycling”, Hands added. “And when recycling bring banks are included, 92% of local authorities now collect beverage cartons for recycling, ensuring that the vast majority of households in the UK have access to a carton collection system.

ACE UK has a dedicated recycling team which offers advice and support to local authorities and community recycling networks wanting to collect cartons. An interactive map on the ACE UK website (http://ace-uk.co.uk/recycling/where-can-i-recycle) also helps residents find out where and how they can recycle beverage cartons in their area.

To find out more about beverage carton recycling, visit: www.ace-uk.co.uk

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According to the ninth annual Proforest* report on the Chain of Custody (CoC) commitment made in 2007 by Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) members – Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc – 100% of wood fibre purchased globally in 2015 was either FSC certified or FSC controlled wood.

ace uk logoThis means ACE members have met their commitment to source 100% wood fibre that is traceable to fully third party verified legal and acceptable sources by the end of 2015 – and that all ACE members' food and drink carton production sites, and the board mills supplying these sites, are now Chain of Custody certified.

“When we set the target in 2007 we knew it was an ambitious one, so it is great news that the 100% target has been achieved and independently verified”, comments Richard Hands, Chief Executive of ACE UK. 

“Realising the target set in the original 2007 commitment, which had the support of the WWF European Policy Office, has helped achieve EU and international forest policy objectives to promote sustainable forestry practices, such as the EU’s action plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT).”

Responsibly sourced raw materials have a key role to play in supporting a low carbon circular economy. In Sweden and Finland, where most of the wood fibre for European food and drink cartons originates, forests are expanding with growth in forest volume increasing year-on-year as annual growth exceeds cuttings.

“ACE members have a clear interest in ensuring that forests are responsibly managed as, on average, 75% of a food and beverage carton is made from this natural renewable material.

“Traceability is one of our industry’s key strategies in ensuring the responsible sourcing of primary raw materials, which is, in turn, critical to achieving sustainable economic growth. Achieving this target really is an important milestone for the food and drink carton industry”, concluded Hands.

The ninth annual Proforest report on ACE’s Chain of Custody (CoC) commitment can be found here:

http://www.ace-uk.co.uk/images/uploads/ace_9th_annual_report_2015_final.pdf

* Proforest is an independent verifier of natural resource management.

About the commitment

The commitment of ACE members is two-fold and global. First, the three beverage carton manufacturers, Tetra Pak, Elopak, SIG Combibloc undertake by 2015 to reach 100% wood fibre that is traceable to legal and acceptable sources, using processes that have been independently verified. The scope includes all wood fibres used in mills producing paperboard for the three companies. Second they commit to secure by 2018 chain of custody certification for all their carton manufacturing plants. Within the European Union, 100% of the wood used for the production of beverage cartons already comes from paper mills that have an FSC-certified Chain of Custody in place.

About ACE UK

The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) UK provides a platform for the industry to profile and benchmark cartons as a renewable, recyclable and low-carbon packaging choice, and to drive its environmental initiatives. This includes running the industry’s carton recycling programme.

ACE UK represents Tetra Pak, Elopak, SIG Combibloc, the leading manufacturers of beverage cartons for the UK market. It is also supported by BillerudKorsnäs and Stora Enso, which produce about 98% of the paperboard used by ACE UK members to manufacture beverage cartons in Europe.

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Simply Waste Solutions has announced it will now collect and supply used cups to the UK’s only food and drink carton recycling plant.

Paper Cup Bale 2 472x448ACE UK has assessed the capability of this technology to process paper drinking cups and, through its partnership with the plant operator Sonoco Alcore, will be able to recycle cups, alongside cartons, into new paper products.

Simply Waste, the logistics arm of the Simply Cups paper cup recycling scheme, has been in discussions with ACE UK since 2014 to understand how to ensure cup material can meet all the plant’s infeed quality standards, by eliminating contaminants before the used material reaches the facility.

“The process has not been easy, and challenges have needed to be overcome, but with advice from ACE UK we have developed a formula where we can now supply consistently high-quality, uncontaminated bulk-loads of used paper cups for reprocessing; a standard that no other waste management company has yet achieved on a consistent basis.”

Simply Waste Solutions is the only current supplier of used cups to the plant and offers the Simply Cups scheme access to this reprocessor as one of a number of recycling options.

James Capel, Simply Waste’s CEO and Founder, commented: “This arrangement is the culmination of an initial discussion with ACE UK over two years ago. The process has not been easy, and challenges have needed to be overcome, but with advice from ACE UK we have developed a formula where we can now supply consistently high-quality, uncontaminated bulk-loads of used paper cups for reprocessing; a standard that no other waste management company has yet achieved on a consistent basis.

Pulper and converyor 472x399“Although every cup we’ve ever collected has been recycled into new products, the new processes that have been put into place, and the new opportunity to recycle at the ACE UK facility, will give added assurance to the growing number of Simply Cups’ members that the quality of their used cups now reaches the highest possible standards which will only make the recycling process more efficient.”

ACE UK’s dedicated carton recycling facility was opened in 2013 and was a major milestone in the organisation’s drive to increase food and drink carton recycling across the UK. The plant is capable of recycling up to 40% of the cartons manufactured each year for the UK food and drink market and processes cartons collected through the industry’s own bring bank system, or from the 64 per cent of UK local authorities which collect cartons for recycling at kerbside.

Mandy Kelly, ACE UK’s Senior Recycling Manager, commented: “Our facility was designed to recycle food and drink cartons. As such paper cups can only be recycled as a limited percentage of the overall processing capacity and cartons will always take precedence.

“In order to accept cups into the process we have had to set rigorous standards. Simply Waste has worked hard to hone its own processes to meet our rigorous requirements and quality standards, to successfully make cup recycling a reality at our facility.”

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