Improvements To Bournemouth Recycling Scheme

12 November 2010

Residents in Bournemouth can now include liquid food and drink cartons - made of waxy or shiny paper that used to contain items such as juices, fresh soups, milk products and increasingly chopped tomatoes, cooking sauces and wine - in their kerbside recycling bins for the first time.

This is the biggest change to Bournemouth's recycling scheme for four years and is down to advances in recycling technology that mean the containers can be broken down and used to make new products more efficiently. It has also been made possible following agreement with the Council's existing waste disposal contractor Viridor to process these additional items at no extra cost.

Councillor Michael Filer, portfolio holder for environment and transport said: "The issue of why we haven't been able to recycle food and drinks cartons of this nature is one of the most commonly asked recycling questions in Bournemouth. Thanks to agreement with our contractor, Viridor, I am delighted that we are now able to offer this option. We have recently broken the 50 percent barrier for our recycling of rubbish. Now with the addition of food and drink cartons to the list of recyclable items we hope to increase our volumes and percentages to such an extent that we will be an example to the rest of the country."

Richard Jenkins, Regional Manager for Viridor, said: "We work closely with Bournemouth Borough Council to identify opportunities for increasing recycling rates and resource efficiency, and to this end were able to provide the council with additional processing capacity for Tetrapaks at our Materials Recycling Facility in Crayford.

"After the Tetrapaks and other recyclable items have been collected from people's homes in Bournemouth, we separate them into individual materials and bulk them up ready to send on to manufacturers for reprocessing into new products and packaging."