Tetra Pak Launches Europe's first ever FSC-Certified milk cartons in Ireland

Following our recent article Moving Milk, Glass Bottles or Recyclable Packaging the case for the carton grows...............


Tetra Pak Ireland has announced the first-ever Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC)-certified carton into the Irish market, in its latest move to ensure its cartons have the strongest environmental story possible.

FSC certification is one of the highest standards of forest certification and requires forests to be managed in a way that protects the environment, society and the long-term economic future of forestry.

Tetra Pak cartons with the new FSC certification label can now be found on Avonmore one-litre milk ranges.

The launch of the certification comes at a time when people across Ireland are still determined to care about the environment, despite the current tough economic times. Three-quarters of people (78%) feel it is important that their milk and juice packaging is made from renewable materials and around 40% of people say they are willing to pay more for environmentally-friendly products.

In support of this, Tetra Pak is running a public awareness campaign - See the Wood for the Trees! It is an educational campaign to help families across Ireland to see the bigger picture, think about the planet and consider the environmental impact of a product across the whole of its life before they buy it. It is about understanding the importance of looking after the planet’s natural resources and how easy it can be for them to ‘do their bit’ by choosing milk and juice in cartons.

Cartons are made from wood - a natural, renewable resource. Tetra Pak works with its suppliers
to ensure that the forests the wood is sourced from are responsibly managed, ensuring that all the paperboard used comes from known, legal and acceptable sources. Tetra Pak already sources 100% of its paperboard in Europe from FSC chain-of-custody certified suppliers in order to demonstrate traceability.

FSC certification is widely recognised as one of the highest standards of independent forest management certification.

Commenting on the campaign, Tetra Pak Ireland’s Environment Manager Richard Hands said - "We are delighted to partner with Glanbia - the owners of Avonmore - to launch Ireland’s first ever FSC-certified cartons in the Irish market. Tetra Pak is committed to ensuring that the materials we use to make cartons can be regrown or re-produced and are sourced from well-managed, sustainable forests.

"I encourage everyone to 'see the wood for the trees' and look at the wider environmental picture when choosing your milk and juice products."
For more information about the campaign - Click Here

To revisit Moving Milk, Glass Bottles or Recyclable Packaging Click here

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ELECTRONIC RECYCLING

Specialists in Computer Recycling and IT Disposal

http://www.electronic-recycling.ie/

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Converting waste plastics to energy

Agency for Green Technology

AGT Technology Ireland Ltd
Brendan Palmer, Managing Director of AGT Technology Ireland Ltd, has worked in the WEEE recycling industry since the setup of Electronic Recycling in 1996. In 2005, with an investment from One51 Ltd., he set up TechRec Ireland Ltd, the only fully automated WEEE recycling plant on the island of Ireland. Selling out the shareholding in March 2008, Brendan decided to focus on the problem of non-recyclable plastics from WEEE. This was one of the major problems encountered in operating the WEEE recycling plant.

Over the last fifteen years, AGT Management & Engineering, based in Austria, have developed Low Temperature Conversion (LTC) technology, which can convert plastics into energy in the form of either gas, electricity or liquid fuels. Matching the solution to the problem, AGT Technology Ireland Ltd was set up in November 2008.

What is Low Temperature Conversion (LTC)?

Historical Development
The basis of LTC, anaerobic carbon enrichment, goes back to the time of charcoal making. Now, with the use of a State of the art technology, optimum process flows and significantly improved environmental controls, LTC has become a unique, extremely efficient and economical way to generate energy from organic waste streams.

The process
Low Temperature Conversion is multi-stage thermo-catalytic decomposition operating at temperatures well below 700°C.The LTC process is not incineration and converts organic waste to very high grade combustion gas similar to natural gas. This progressive thermal-catalytic material gasification with integrated gas purification and residue cleaning is carried out in an entirely closed system minimizing emissions.

Conventional incineration systems convert only a small part of their waste input into energy and release the majority as heat, which cannot be easily transported or stored. The LTC is a continuous process in which all heat is consumed in the conversion process. No external heat is produced.

The closed system and the low conversion temperature of an LTC plant produce very low emissions. Unlike incineration plants, LTC plants do not overheat inorganic material present in the feedstock. These materials pass through the system without creating contaminants and can be easily recovered and recycled.

This solution to WEEE plastics will predominantly be provided in Europe but the process can also be used for any non-recyclable plastics and AGT plan to develop a number of plants in Ireland to address the growing problem of what to do with co-mingled waste plastics, 210,000 tonnes of which were landfilled in the Republic of Ireland in 2007.
For more information http://www.agt-technology.ie/