New facilities are being provided in Oxford to recycle drinks cartons.

The city council, in partnership with Tetra Pak Ltd and the carton industry body Ace UK (Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment), has provided four new banks for recycling drinks cartons.

The cartons cannot be put in household recycling bins, but can now be recycled using special bins at the Union Street car park, off Cowley Road; the Tesco car park in Cowley; Mill Road, Wolvercote; and the Ferry Sports Centre in Summertown. There is already a bin at Redbridge waste recycling centre, off Abingdon Road.

Jean Fooks, executive member for a cleaner city, said: "I'm delighted we can now provide this service to our residents and we are grateful for Tetra Pak's support.

"Every little measure we introduce helps to boost our recycling rate, which is now hovering about the 40 per cent mark.

"These drinks cartons can't be sorted automatically at the materials recycling facility we use at Milton Keynes.

"They are quite bulky items and we do not want them going straight to landfill."

Richard Hands, environment manager at Tetra Pak and chairman of Ace UK, added: "We are committed to increasing the level of carton recycling in the UK with the aim of reaching a national network of carton collection by the end of 2008.

"Our work with Oxford City Council takes us and households in the area one step closer to achieving that."

Each year, UK beverage carton manufacturers produce about 55,000 tonnes of paper-based cartons for milk, juice, sauces and other liquid foods and drinks - about 2.3kg of cartons per house- hold.

Once collected, the cartons are taken to a recycling mill and the material reused in products ranging from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes.

The carton recycling banks are part of the council's drive to increase recycling in the city since its switch to fortnightly collections last year.

Recycling rates have improved dramatically since wheelie bins were rolled out across the city.

In June, official figures revealed the recycling rate doubled in the six months since fortnightly collections were introduced with 39 per cent of household waste recycled.