Chelmsford residents can now recycle juice cartons

Chelmsford Borough Council has now begun collecting liquid food and drinks cartons such as Tetra Pak, as part of its kerbside recycling service. Residents of Chelmsford now have the opportunity to recycle even more of their household waste.

Every year, UK beverage carton manufacturers produce approximately 57,000 tonnes of cartons for milk and juices, and increasingly even chopped tomatoes and wine. That's possibly over 200 cartons each year from each household in Chelmsford that could be prevented from going to landfill.

Chelmsford residents have shown their passion for recycling their cartons by depositing them in various local bring banks across the borough, but now the Council is delighted to be able to repay their efforts by introducing collections for cartons on its kerbside recycling service. Residents can now simply place their cartons into their clear recycling bags for plastics, together with their other plastic recyclables.

Cartons like Tetra Pak are often made up of three different materials; card, plastic and aluminium foil and this makes them dificult to recycle as each material has to be seperated. The Council now operates a material sorting facility which is located at its Freighter House depot. This machine allows the Council to separate different types of plastic such as milk bottles from yoghurt pots. This sorting facility has recently been upgraded with new technology to not only be able to handle increased amounts of material and different types of plastic, but also the ability to identify liquid food and drink cartons such as Tetra Pak and separate them from other plastics.

Once sorted and baled, your cartons are ready to be transported to a recycling reprocessing factory. They are then recycled into a number of different products, ranging from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes. The remaining mix of plastic and aluminium can then be used in furniture or to generate energy.