News

BPI's consumer VMB business has claimed a reduction in cardboard usage of more than 100 tonnes after it switched cores for many of its reels from cardboard to plastic.

The Worcester-based company has started delivering reels of plastic film to customers on re-usable plastic cores after setting up an internal system to use the cores with its sister companies that supply film.

Greenvale AP, one of the UK’s biggest suppliers of potatoes to supermarkets, brands and caterers, is the first customer to use the plastic cores, which have been used up to 50 times in trials.

Nick Whyman, environment officer at BPI.consumer VMB, told Packaging News that the cores, which are produced from recycled plastic by BPI’s Recycled Products business in Dumfries, brought both environmental and cost benefits.

"The plastic cores cost about four times more than a cardboard core, so the payback is quick," he said.

"What’s more, under the producer responsibility obligations, companies have to declare their transit packaging. A user only has to declare a reusable core once; after that it’s effectively a freebie."

Whyman estimated that during 2009, BPI.consumer VMB, which is one of the UK’s biggest flexibles printing and converting sites, around 85 tonnes of cardboard was saved through the switch to plastic cores.

BPI’s plastic core project began in May 2009 when trials began to transport reels of film between BPI.films and BPI.consumer VMB and to return the cores once they were used.

Once the system was working correctly internally, it was offered to Greenvale, which began trialling the system late in 2009.

Whyman said that other customers were now also showing interest in adopting the system and that Greenvale AP was rolling it out across new lines.

Greenvale AP operations manager Rob Phllips said: "We are delighted that something as simple as re-using recycled reel cores enables us to divert a significant amount of cardboard from landfill each year."