The Association of Municipal Recycling Coordinators (AMRC) in Ontario, Canada carries an interesting piece in its latest newsletter reflecting on the merits of the larger size plastic water bottles. It raises interesting issues of polymer type and illustrates the perversity that larger bottles present collection and handling challenges (by virtue of their size not material), despite the fact that larger, homogeneous items ought to be more useful for recovery, not less.

I thought you might be interested to read the following - further contact details for AMRC via www.amrc.ca.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Oversized water bottles on the way

Take a good look at the water jugs on the right. Which are recyclable? Which are not? In theory, all are made from eminently recyclable plastic. But the size of the containers compared to the standard blue box (seen behind) and the implications of large water jugs finding their way into blue box programs is worrying program operators.

CULLIGAN

The 18-litre Culligan jug on the left is made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and its sale price includes a $5 or $10 deposit that is returned when the jug is returned to the point of sale. It carries a mobius loop but all the post-consumer management of the empty container is looked after by the retailer/supplier. The stream is thus pure PVC and easily cleaned and refilled, or recycled at the appropriate facility. No tax dollars are spent on the management of this container. There are no litter issues. The deposit system has been used for water jugs like this for many years.

FERNBROOK

Enter the 15-litre polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) water jug, seen on the right with a Fernbrook brand label, bottled near Shelburne, Ontario. It is marked as "100% recyclable". It is also marked "single use", "no deposit" and "not reuseable". The material is ideal for recycling, but the size of the jug is an issue for recycling programs. While the label says the jug is collapsible, it cannot be done easily and most will likely never be flattened. And given the trend towards single-stream programs, there will less and less emphasis on blue box preparation. Given their size, no more than one of these 15-litre jugs will fit a standard blue box, and it will not take very many to "cube out" a recycling truck. Material recovery facilities (MRFs) are designed to handle regular-sized food and beverage containers. Extra large items like these jugs may not "fit" the system, leading to back-ups, jams and space issues. If they have to be "positive-sorted", extra staff will need to be dedicated to the task and extra space found to store the material.

CANADIAN SPRINGS

The Canadian Springs jug in the centre is an 8-litre container made from PET, but the spout (ironically promoted on the label as a "convenient tap") and handle are made from another kind of plastic and are not easily removed. The non-PET features will lead to more contamination of the stream. Like the Fernbrook jug, the Canadian Springs container is described as collapsible and even shows how it can be done. It is not easily done. At least half of the extra cost of managing these large PET containers will be borne by the municipal taxpayer once the containers start appearing in the municipally-run blue box system. But the truly scary part of the scenario, say operators, is what happens when people start thinking they can put their PVC jugs in the blue box. Just one or two PVC jugs can contaminate a whole load of PET. The AMRC Markets, Operations & Contracts Committee discussed oversized jugs at its recent meeting and is writing to industry representatives and plastics markets about the issue.


09. Denmark - environmental concerns in the development of food products

During the last year, Arla Foods , in co-operation with COWI A/S, has