Carton Council of Canada celebrate anniversary milestone during Waste Reduction Week

October 22, 2014

The inbound feed line to the pulping system at a paper mill, with screen. Cartons arrive in a bale, which is broken apart, and then move onto the in-feed conveyor, and are dumped into a pulper.

During this year's Waste Reduction Week ( October 20-26 - www.wrwcanada.com ) the Carton Council of Canada (CCC) is proudly celebrating the fact that over the past five years some 157,000 tons of cartons have been diverted from Canadian landfills and carton recycling rates have climbed from 41 percent to 51 percent nationally.

"This accomplishment is particularly significant as we commemorate our five year anniversary as an organization," stated Elisabeth Comere, the Council's Vice President, Governmental Affairs. "As we celebrate Waste Reduction Week, it is important we recognize how the CCC contributed to this impressive achievement through awareness building, advocacy and consumer education activities."

Five years ago the CCC, a group of carton packaging manufacturers, formed to advance the common goal to deliver long-term collaborative solutions with multiple stakeholders in the value chain in order to divert cartons from landfills. Since that time significant gains have been made due, in part, to the CCC's efforts.

Cartons are a valuable material and represent some of the cleanest and best long fiber remaining in the residential recycling stream and there are stable end markets for cartons in North America. Over the past few years, CCC has worked to promote visibility and understanding of carton recycling among municipalities and sorting facilities, and to motivate consumers to recycle their cartons.

"We are making concrete progress by driving concerted actions in collaboration both with public authorities and with the various players across the carton recycling value chain in order to improve carton recycling awareness, understanding and infrastructure. "This will be a long-term process, and we firmly believe that only by joining forces can we develop the sustainable solutions we need to continue to grow carton recycling," said Ms. Comere in closing.

The Carton Council of Canada represents the leading carton manufacturing companies in Canada, including Elopak, Evergreen Packaging, SIG Combibloc and Tetra Pak. These companies manufacture and market processing and packaging systems that are convenient, safe and environmentally sound.

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