Environment and evolution

You might say that Richard Hands’ career development brought him into the cartons industry via the scenic route, having begun his career working in forestry. A new path led him to the sharp end of environmental policy planning. And eventually, nine years ago, Richard made the leap into industry as Environment Manager for Tetra Pak UK & Ireland, in which role he enjoyed a stint as Chair of ACE UK.

All this experience gives Richard a broad appreciation of what goes into carton manufacture and marketing, and prepared him to represent the leading beverage carton packaging manufacturers and help drive the industry’s environmental initiatives.

In our conversation, he explained that ACE has existed for a long time as a platform for the carton industry to work together on non-competitive issues, among which environmental matters are a priority: “The evolution of this full-time position will help industry to build on its environmental work,” he says. On board in a permanent position, he will focus on gearing up for reprocessing cartons in the UK and, importantly, enhancing the economic value of recycling.

Chief among the industry’s aims is, he says: “Making it easy to recycle through kerbside collection and ‘bring banks’. By the end of 2011, 40% of the UK will be covered by kerbside collection and a further 50% by bring banks. An absence of collection activity in the south of England, in the counties of Cornwall, Hampshire and Kent, is due to long-term contracts with local authorities’ waste management partners, explains Richard, but the aim is to bring them on board as soon as possible.

Relevant to the growth of cartons are the need to communicate the benefits of food waste prevention and also of resource efficiency, he continues. Their interaction is complex, and it will be his job to convince others to take the right paths.

Richard has a long-standing commitment to environmental matters. He graduated in Environmental Science 30 years ago, ‘when concern about the environment was starting to be taken seriously’. He grew his knowledge, first as a forest ranger in Scotland, then in countryside policy as Head of Sustainable Policy at County Council level.

The move into packaging with Tetra Pak underlines his belief that packaging can make a difference and the carton ‘starts at a very good place’, in the forest. To harness renewable resources will be fundamental to long-term sustainability, he believes.

In his role as ‘facilitator’ at ACE, Richard will be talking to NGOs including green groups and government agencies – and fellow trade associations. The idea is to engage government departments that ‘have influence’, he says: “It is important that we are open and share ideas on a regular basis. It is about building relationships”.

Currently, a lack of facilities means that collected and sorted cartons are being sent to Sweden for recycling. The UK paper mill that used to carry out reprocessing no longer exists: it was lost in the mill closures of 2006. But plans for a new mill in the UK ‘are making good progress’, adds Richard.

Nevertheless, until a new UK programme of carton recycling starts up, the present system is ‘no bad thing in terms of life cycle analysis’: in carbon terms, it is neutral compared with a UK-based solution, He confirms, due to the high proportion of renewable energy used in Sweden.

The development of technology to separate the plastics and aluminium elements of a carton is ‘great news from an environmental point of view’, he says. It gives a high value secondary use, and this can result in an improved economic model for carton recycling. And it shows the packaging industry’s ability to push forward innovative achievement: “The industry has a significant hand in developing technology.”

He highlights an interesting development in the use of plasma technology at a plant in Brazil; while another plant is using pyrolysis in Barcelona, Spain. Both technologies allow for the separation of plastics and foil into paraffinic oils and high-quality aluminium. Also, there are mechanical recycling plants worldwide and a gasification plant in Finland producing energy and secondary aluminium powders.

In the context of climate change predictions, the need for resource saving measures will apply increasingly to water, and to understand what the water footprint means to carton manufacturing has become a priority for ACE, says Richard.

It is his hope that, in terms of cartons and the environment, the mutual co-operation of ACE members Elopak, SIG Combibloc and Tetra Pak will continue to ‘transform the picture in the UK’.