Crisp Malt has launched a second recycling programme for its customers, offering an industry-first solution to recycling waste malt sacks in bulk.
The Freight Recycling Programme follows a successful one-month trial with nine brewing and distilling customers who purchase large quantities of malt sacks.
Crisp Malt recently partnered with innovative recycling company TerraCycle to meet strong customer demand for more sustainable packaging disposal solutions in the sector.
The Freight Recycling Programme allows customers to pack empty plastic malt sacks of any size onto pallets, with no restriction on weight, offering cost-effective bulk collections and recycling for brewers and distillers.
Empty malt sacks from all suppliers can be recycled via this programme, as long as the packaging composition is polypropylene or polyethylene.
The sum of the three associated costs of the programme are comparable to other waste disposal routes, composed of the recycling, the pallet handling ,and the shipment fees.
The recycling fee is based on weight at £2.47 per kg, while the pallet handling fee is a standard £25 per pallet. The shipment fee will be variable depending on the customer’s distance from TerraCycle’s Material Recovery Facility. Shipment can either be arranged by the customer or TerraCycle.
“The recycling of plastic malt sacks has been an industry-wide challenge for many years, mainly due to the difficulties around the local recycling of polypropylene,” said Crisp Malt sustainability co-orinator, Ellie Wood.
“We have been working hard to resolve this and are proud to offer an industry-first solution to recycling waste malt sacks in bulk after a successful trial with our customers, who found the system to be very user friendly.
“During the one-month trial, we recycled 820 kg of waste malt sacks at an average cost of £2.82 per kg (excluding shipment fees). We are excited to be onboarding many new customers onto the programme, supporting them with their sustainability goals.”
Julien Tremblin, general manager at TerraCycle Europe, said: “Disposing of plastic malt sacks in a more environmentally responsible way is a challenge faced by commercial malt-users of all sizes and capacities, so it is great to see Crisp Malt bringing a flexible, cost-effective recycling solution that caters for the varied operational scope of its client base.
“After a successful pilot with selected customers, we hope and expect to see widespread engagement across the malt-using industry as we roll out the solution across the UK.”
