When the government of British Columbia gave the juice producers a year's
grace to find a recycling solution for drink boxes, the PolyCoat Container
Management Committee was formed.
That committee paid for a large study (which claims to be the 'most
comprehensive' such study in North America) to look at box recycling
options. (Although the study was partially funded with PUBLIC MONEY, the
results have not been shared with the public.
Based on the study, the Committee recommended that a local papermill be
re-tooled to be able to handle the containers. This was largely for
political reasons -- local jobs. I'm sure it was also necessary to address
the problem you faced: these boxes cannot sit around waiting to be
recycled. However, the study also found that BC will have to receive boxes
from several adjacent states and provinces, in order to have enough volume
to process economically. Your experience suggests that that material will
have to move pretty fast from those locations to be successfully recycled.
Helen S.
At 04:26 PM 9/9/99 -0400, Blair Pollock wrote:
>Helen: Do you know what the market is like out there for these boxes? Here
>in NC we were shipping them bundled with gable top cartons to a paper plant
>in Bowater TN. After over a year our 10 drop off site/ 110,000 person, 400
>sq. mi. county with an ohterwise reasonable recycling rate, had collected
>only 20 tons, one truckload, when shipped to the paper mill, the load was
>rejected as too wet/dirty/moldy,etc. We dropped boxes and gable top cartons
>from the program. Blair Pollock.