Marlborough is now a collection point for the Food and Beverage Carton Recycling Scheme (FBCRS).

Council’s Solid Waste Manager Mark Lucas said Council’s approval by the Packaging Forum as a collection point is great news for the region. Recycled containers can be dropped at the Hazardous Waste Centre in Wither Road, Blenheim or Envirohub in Picton.

“Marlborough can now recycle all manner of food and beverage containers. We currently send 30 tonnes of these packages to landfill each year but now we can divert them if we all work together,” Mr Lucas said.

“Once we have sufficient containers - around 600kg - they will be baled and shipped to Hamilton to a company that is turning them into a building product called saveBOARD. One major advantage of this product is that any off cuts can be reprocessed again,” he said.

This nationwide initiative is a voluntary product stewardship scheme supported by the users of these containers. For more information go to: https://fbcarton.recycling.kiwi.nz/

“Being a product stewardship scheme there is no cost to Council or ratepayers for the transport of the product, but we get the benefit of the landfill cost savings,” Mr Lucas said.

For the cartons to be accepted they need to be cut open, rinsed and laid flat.

“At the moment we cannot collect these in our kerbside collection but there is work in progress to see if we can get that changed. But we hope to roll out this service to all the transfer stations from 1 July.”

For more information go to: www.marlborough.govt.nz/services/recycling-and-waste/recycling/food-and-beverage-cartons

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