In an ‘industry-first’ partnership, maltster Crisp Malt and TerraCycle are working to collect, recycle, and repurpose used malt sacks – anticipating the rescue of 70 tonnes of plastic from landfills and incinerators annually.
TerraCycle Zero Waste Boxes are designed to store, ship, and recycle a range of hard-to-recycle waste that is generally incompatible with traditional recycling facilities or not recycled via local councils. They can now be purchased directly through Crisp Malt sales or customer service teams in the UK, with the first 100 boxes available at half-price to celebrate the launch.
Customers are encouraged to put their empty malt sacks into the boxes to be recycled. A large Zero Waste Box is expected to hold around 80-100 empty 25kg malt sacks; and recycling, shipping, and handling fees are said to be covered by a cost of around £131 per box, excluding VAT.
An alternative option will be made available, in which Crisp Malt and TerraCycle will provide bulk collection and recycling services. The cost is said to be ‘comparable’ to that of existing disposal routes.
Apparently, Crisp Malt has become the first major maltster to facilitate the collection, recycling, and repurposing of its used malt sacks in the UK.
“Many of our customers are moving towards more sustainable practices across all areas of their business,” explains Ellie Wood, sustainability coordinator at Crisp Malt. “Our partnership with TerraCycle addresses the industry-wide challenge of used malt sack disposal.
“This initiative provides our customers with a simple solution to recycle their waste malt sacks, helping them meet their own ‘zero waste’ goals as well as helping us work towards our own ‘zero waste’ sustainability targets. If all our customers adopted this scheme, over 70 tonnes of plastic waste from sacks could be kept out of landfills and incinerators each year.
“Our partnership with TerraCycle provides our customers with a fully transparent and traceable sustainable waste management process. The Zero Waste Box programme is just the start – we are developing another option for our larger customers to offer bulk collections and recycling.”
“TerraCycle is delighted to be partnering with Crisp Malt to bring a recycling solution for plastic malt sacks to its UK brewery, distillery and other malt-using industry customers,” adds Julien Tremblin, general manager at TerraCycle Europe. “Malt sacks represent one of the most significant waste management challenges these sectors face, so it is great to see a market leader like Crisp Malt taking proactive action to offer its customers the opportunity to address this issue in a collaborative way.
“We would encourage any maltster to follow Crisp Malt’s forward thinking example to help grow a widespread transition to more circular waste management practices across the malting industry.”
The Zero Waste Bag was launched last June. It targeted waste from fourteen common waste streams not collected in UK waste streams, including crisp and snack packets, cosmetic products and packaging, and medicine blister packs.
Since then, TerraCycle has worked with Aldi to trial a blister pack recycling scheme for its own-label medicines. Shoppers could return their empty blister packs in an envelope with a Freepost shipping label, with TerraCycle then converting the plastic and aluminium foil into recycled raw material for new products.
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