Wallingford’s ‘Tetra Pak’ mountain is finally on the move

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It has taken several years to achieve, but at midday on Saturday 1 March 2008, Wallingford’s mountain of drink cartons will at last be sent for recycling. The cartons – of which the best-known type is the Tetra Pak – will get a special send-off in Wallingford Market Place to mark the end of a long campaign by members of local green group, Sustainable Wallingford. The group has collected so many cartons that a large lorry, supplied by Tetra Pak, will be needed to transport them from the town.

Sustainable Wallingford started collecting drinks cartons at its popular Swap Shop events nearly three years ago. With no local recycling facilities then available, the cartons were brought in to Swap Shops in their hundreds by local residents. Sustainable Wallingford volunteers squashed and packed the cartons ready for eventual recycling.  While members of the group researched the best way of doing this, the steadily growing quantity of cartons was stored at the home of Sustainable Wallingford member, Christine Sharrock.

But getting them recycled proved trickier than expected. Although drinks cartons like Tetra Paks are recyclable, the materials in them are hard to separate. As well as paperboard, the cartons contain aluminium and plastic and these different elements have to be separated out in the recycling process. There is a lack of processing facilities in the UK, so the Wallingford Tetra Paks collected on 1 March will be baled up and shipped to Sweden where they will be processed in a paper mill and turned into plasterboard lining.

Caron Spence of Sustainable Wallingford’s Waste Group said: “We’re delighted that the mountain is on the move at last, so that Wallingford will get its Tetra Paks recycled – and Christine can get her house back!”

Local recycling facilities have improved since Sustainable Wallingford first starting collecting Tetra Paks. Oxfordshire County Council has now introduced recycling containers at its Waste Recycling Centres such as Oakley Wood.

And there is more good news; South Oxfordshire District Council have introduced a Tetrapak juice carton bank in the car park of the SODC offices in Crowmarsh.