TETRA Pak has said it is making efforts to raise the carton recycling rate from the current 3 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020.

The target was announced by the company’s environment manager Mohammed Angawi at a gathering in Jeddah of Arab beverage produces from across the region.

“Tetra Pak’s concept of protection encompasses the protection of the environment. Our main goals relating to sustainability include the desire to reduce the carbon footprint across the value chain, develop a greater portfolio of sustainable products and increase recycling in Arabia. We aim to ensure that the environment remains strategically important for the food packaging industry in the Arabian region,” commented Angawi.

In his presentation, Angawi emphasised on a growing global trend that showed consumers prefer products that can be recycled. He said environmental and energy factors were found to be most important in   shaping the future of beverage packaging in the face of consumer concerns on the environment.

“Tetra Pak has always had a policy to focus on the sustainability aspect of packaging solutions. The fact that customers are now thinking, acting and buying green, further motivates us to provide beverage manufacturers with innovative sustainable solutions such as recyclable caps made from sugar cane. Tetra Pak aims to accelerate green product innovation to develop greener packages that offer the convenience and quality of traditional packaging at a competitive cost,” said the official.

Tetra Pak, the world’s leading company for food processing and packaging solutions, provides products that meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world. Tetra Pak supplied 6.7 billion packs in the Arabian Peninsula region in 2011.