Tetra Pak still pursuing recycling project, looks at other partners

Recycling project initially announced in 2013, but no progress yet made; company aims to start by end of next year

Tetra Pak, a leading food processing and packaging solutions company, is still pursuing the recycling project it announced in 2013 with Akef Pack-tec, an Egyptian shopping bag manufacturing company.
It is now, however, looking at a number of other companies with which to undertake the project, according to Anders Lindgren, Tetra Pak Egypt's managing director.
Akef Pack-tec has not brought the focus onto this project, due to its having started to gain other businesses, which resulted in the delay, Lindgren noted.
"We can't do it by ourselves, so we need someone to do it," Lindgren said. "We have an agreement with [the company], but that hasn't happened yet so we are looking at other partners."
On why the project was hindered, Lindgren said that there were two main reasons.
In 2013, the company announced its plans to donate €250,000 to establish a recycling project. At the time, Lindgren told Daily News Egypt: "Around 90% of the recycled used beverage cartons [UBCs] are Tetra Pak's."
"There was rather a technical solution that we all thought would be the right solution for Egypt and the other thing is that [the company] has a lot of other businesses, so it's about business priorities as well," Lindgren added.
Lindgren said that his company remains committed to "make the project happen" by the end of next year.
In 2013, Lindgren highlighted that "currently around 35,000 tonnes of UBCs are recycled. Tetra Pak recycles around 20% of that, which is 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes."
The company's €250,000 donation, he said, would help boost that share from 20% to 30%, bringing final recycling capacity to 12,000 tonnes.
Tetra Pak packs 3bn packages annually. The company's managing director said that the company would need to pack between 5bn to 7bn packaged to construct a packaging factory. The company's profits grow by 15%-20% year-on-year.