MALT manufacturer 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 month-long trial with nine brewing and distilling customers who purchase large quantities of malt sacks. Crisp Malt recently partnered with recycling company TerraCycle to meet demand for more sustainable packaging disposal solutions.
The initiative 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 sacks from all suppliers can be recycled as long as the packaging composition is polypropylene or polyethylene.
The sum of the three associated costs of the programme are said to be ‘comparable to other waste disposal routes’, composed of the recycling, the pallet handling and the shipment fees.
Ellie Wood, sustainability coordinator at Crisp Malt, said, “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. 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 820kg 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.”
Holyrood Distillery was one of nine customers to take part in the trial. Calum Rae, distillery manager, commented, “When we heard about the TerraCycle trial at Crisp Malt we were delighted. The move towards more sustainable practices has been a key goal for Holyrood this year and this was the perfect chance to help shape and feed into this great initiative. The team at Crisp Malt clearly outlined what the trial was about and were supportive from start to finish. We found the trial to be a success as the ability to recycle our malt sacks will help alleviate a large portion of our waste disposal needs.”
Julien Tremblin, general manager, TerraCycle Europe, added, “TerraCycle is delighted to have launched this freight recycling programme with Crisp Malt. 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.”
