New contract for mixed paper and card recycling services for Highland

26th November 2024

The Highland Council is pleased to announce a new contract has been awarded to Smurfit Westrock, a global leader in sustainable paper and packaging, for the Provision of Mixed Paper & Cardboard Treatment Services with Haulage (from the Highland Council area).

The contract which covers a period of up to 6 years will see approximately 11,500 tonnes of mixed paper and card transported from Highland Council Waste Transfer Stations to Smurfit Westrock's Glasgow recycling facility annually.

The mixed paper and card will be graded and baled at the Glasgow facility, to ensure the best quality feedstock for the paper making process. The baled material will then be transported to Smurfit Westrock’s two recycling paper mills within the UK for processing into brown paper reels - these are then distributed to their 32 packaging plants and manufactured into new high quality consumer packaging products.

Chair of the Communities and Place Committee, Councillor Graham MacKenzie, stated "I am delighted that Highland Council has awarded a new contract to Smurfit Westrock to collect and recycle the paper, card and cardboard from the region".

“Securing this contract, is another important milestone for Highland Council, helping to ensure we have long term and robust end markets for the material the public separate for recycling.”

He continued “Keeping the paper and card, dry and free of moisture is very important to the quality of the material and by separating the recycling collected at the kerbside into two bins - paper/card into the blue bin and mixed plastic and metal containers into the green bin, this significantly helps to improve the quality and boost recycling rates.”

“Initial feedback from Smurfit Westrock on the quality of the paper and card from Highland is positive and that the quality of the material is good. This is really reassuring, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the public for their time and effort with the new recycling services”.

“We are delighted to be working with The Highland Council collecting paper and card that can be used as quality feedstock for our UK-based paper mills and look forward to the completion of the rollout.” Said Lucy Russell, Managing Director, Smurfit Westrock Recycling UK.

Paper, card and cardboard including all cardboard packaging, newspapers, envelopes, shredded paper and catalogues can all be recycled in blue recycling bins and at Household Waste Recycling Centres. We cannot accept dirty pizza boxes, blue roll, tissues or takeaway cups for recycling – these should be disposed of in non-recyclable waste bins. Please see visit www.highland.gov.uk/recycle for a list of what items to place in your recycling bins.

The roll out of the new waste and recycling collection service is progressing well with the distribution of the new non-recyclable waste bins to households in Sutherland complete. Deliveries in Caithness have now commenced and are expected to be complete at the beginning of December. Skye and Lochalsh deliveries are scheduled to start in February 2025 and Lochaber roll out will start during the summer 2025.

For more information and tips on how to reduce your waste please visit www.highland.gov.uk/recycle