Progress on two separate recycling schemes has been reported this week: one for PVC store cards and a second for cup collections.
A store gift card trial has seen one million PVC cards successfully recycled, resource recovery specialist Axion Consulting has announced.
The RecoCard project has seen one million PVC store cards successfully recycled
The RecoCard project, managed by Axion, saw the material recycled for use in new products – such as pipes – and prevented 10 tonnes of plastic from being landfilled, it is reported.
Partners of the project were retailer B&Q; Jellyfish Livewire, a Hampshire-based digital marketing agency and gift card producer; and, RPCS (Rubber Plastic Collection Service), a specialist recycler.
Challenege
According to Axion, the UK market for PVC gift and store cards, already worth £5.6 billion a year, continues to grow. “Around two billion are produced each year – equivalent to 2,500. Most cards are redeemed in store and thrown away, where they end up in landfill and don’t biodegrade.”
Recognising the disposal challenge, Jellyfish Livewire decided to explore a take-back scheme and recycling route as part of its Green Gift Card initiative.
The agency partnered with the British Plastics Federation (BPF) to test the recycling concept with a low-volume trial using mobile phone sim card bodies. This material was reprocessed by a specialist recycler. Having proved successful, a larger PVC gift card trial was set up with B&Q to research an environmentally-friendly disposal solution.
The retailer had been left with around one million old and out-of-date cards, having recalled all of its plastic store cards in order to replace them with cardboard ones for environmental reasons, Axion said. At Jellyfish Livewire’s premises, 25 pallets holding the PVC and PETG cards were sorted into material types.
RPCS
The PVC cards were reprocessed by Berkshire-based RPCS, an accredited Recovinyl recycler, into granules to make irrigation pipes. RPCS, which has been operating for 25 years handling post-consumer material has a recycling plant in Newbury which granulated the cards.
“As the first trial of its type, we have shown that gift cards can be recycled successfully and our aim is to eventually extend the scheme to more companies.”
Jane Gardner
Axion Consulting
Explaining the need for a recycling process, Axion explained that the lifecycle of a typical gift or store card “tends to be short and some don’t even reach stores as branding or marketing offers change”
Jellyfish Livewire Managing Director Graham Lycett commented: “There’ll always be a need for both cardboard and plastic cards. As long as we can close the loop for the plastic ones by offering a proper recycling scheme for PVC cards, I think we tick every box and provide retailers with a choice.”
After the trial proved successful, Axion said investment in infrastructure is the next step. This includes a collection hub for PVC cards near to the recycler so that material can be transferred in bulk loads to minimise transport costs.
Cups
Jane Gardner, Principal Consultant, Axion Consulting said: “This is an excellent example of how a ‘short-life’ PVC product like a gift card can be recycled into a ‘long-life’ one such as pipes. As the first trial of its type, we have shown that gift cards can be recycled successfully and our aim is to eventually extend the scheme to more companies.”
Another recycling scheme which is moving forward involves Simply Cups, which has expanded its collection service to cover Manchester and the North-West of England by appointing Lavelle Waste Services as its first approved collection partner.
The cup collection service, operated by Simply Cups co-founders, Simply Waste Solutions, started in 2014 in London and the Thames Valley area.
According to Simply Waste Solutions, this grew to cover the whole of the South of England and the East Midlands, with the ambition to extend the service to other areas of the UK once sufficient volumes had been established.
Building on the success of last year’s #OneMoreShot cup recycling campaign in Manchester, the company said businesses across the North West now can also take advantage of a direct cup collection and recycling service, whereby the used cups will be transformed into new products.
‘Blueprint’
James Capel, co-founder of Simply Cups and CEO of Simply Waste Solutions
“This is the first step towards rolling out a fully-nationwide cup collection service”, says James Capel, CEO of Simply Waste Solutions. “We have now established a blueprint that will enable us to appoint additional collectors, in other regions of the UK that will provide our scheme members with a consistency of quality and service, wherever they happen to be located.”
Commenting on the relationship, Craig Lavelle, managing director of Lavelle Waste Services, said: “It was important for Simply Waste Solutions that we shared the same philosophy and commitment to delivering a reliable and transparent service. This becomes ever more important as increasing numbers of members join the Simply Cups scheme, and cup volumes consequently grow, so that we can guarantee that all the material we collect is successfully recycled into new products at the end-reprocessor”.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
