Local take-away restaurants have joined forces with Monmouthshire County Council to encourage customers to recycle more foil trays.
The new campaign, the first of its kind in the UK, will involve over half of the take-away restaurants in the county and is supported by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation’s (Alupro’s) Aerofoil campaign and the Welsh Assembly Government funded Tidy Towns Wales initiative.
Through the campaign, more than 20 take-away restaurants in Monmouth, Abergavenny, Chepstow, Caldicot and Usk will promote the council’s red and purple bag recycling scheme, and give customers bespoke re-useable cotton bags for carrying their take-aways. Leaflets and posters will remind householders to rinse their foil trays and put them in the purple recycling bag alongside other recyclable materials.
Monmouthshire’s, Head of Waste, Dave Harris said: “We’re aiming for the highest recycling rates in Wales. This is a very simple but effective way for households to help us achieve this, cut carbon emissions and ease the pressure on our landfill sites for waste disposal at the same time. We want to remind residents that once they’ve enjoyed their favourite take-away meal, all they need to do is rinse out the foil trays and place them in their purple recycling bag. It’s the convenient way to recycle your convenience food trays! Also, if you have any food left overs, they can be placed for collection in your blue food waste bin.”
Alupro executive director Rick Hindley said: “We use three billion aluminium foil containers in the UK every year – that’s about 182 per household. The metal can be endlessly recycled, so we are obviously keen to encourage people to recycle whenever and wherever they can.”
“Monmouthshire is the first council in the UK to work with us on a campaign targeting take-aways, so we are really excited to see whether the residents of the county can rise to the challenge and set a good example for the rest of the country to follow.”
Alupro is working with a range of leading metal packaging manufacturers and retailers on a national campaign to encourage local authorities to follow Monmouthshire’s lead by collecting foil, and aerosols, at the kerbside.
The campaign is backed by the major aluminium foil container manufacturers Coppice Alupack, i2r, Jena and Nicholl Food Packaging. Other programme partners include Unilever, the British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association (BAMA) and steel packaging recycler Tata Steel. As a result of the programme 48% of local authorities now offer recycling of both aerosols and foil trays at the kerbside.
