![]() ![]() Tetra Pak claims to have delivered half a billion of them (opens in a new tab), but I've never seen one in the wild in the U.S. Indeed, the company introduced a carton called Tetra Rex Bio in 2014, using fully recycled paper - as opposed to 40 percent recycled in its regular cartons - and plastics derived from sugar cane. While deftly avoiding an apology for its readout, he called the website "a work in progress" that is "constantly being updated." He said that Tetra Pak is "always looking to reduce the environmental footprint of their packages." I spoke with Scott Byrne, who as luck would have it is both the Carton Council's Director of Government Affairs and Tetra Pak's "circular economy expert" for the U.S. But the Carton Council simply smooths over the difference. (Good luck with that!) And Berkeley makes clear that aseptic cartons are never allowed in the compost. You're allowed to put milk cartons "with any plastic parts removed" in the compost, which in this case would mean somehow stripping the polyethylene inside and out. It seemed the Carton Council had misread what it says (opens in a new tab) on Berkeley's Department of Public Works website. I don't know why they'd even recommend that." "Some parchment paper is lined with wax, which is biodegradable, and some with plastic, which isn't, and it's really hard for the average human to tell the difference. "Please don't put Tetra Paks in the compost, that's crazy," said Kathryn Kellogg, a Berkeley-based recycling blogger (opens in a new tab) and author of 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste. Google "carton" and "recycling" and you will almost certainly be led to the website of the Carton Council, a trade group that represents Tetra Pak and other carton companies in all matters of recycling.īut when I entered the zip code for my home in Berkeley, the Carton Council advised that I put my cartons not in the recycling, but in the compost bin. Check out this highly exciting video of the process, then tell me it isn't a thousand times less wasteful of our planet's limited resources to just wash out a bottle or can.Įven finding out if you're in a zip code that can participate in this process is fraught. Some of it ends up as cement, which is in itself the third highest cause of carbon emissions in the world (opens in a new tab). Two giant 18-wheel trucks stuffed full of them make the 2,000-mile journey every few months, just from San Francisco alone.Īnd that's just the first part of a carbon-intensive process of separating those plastic, paper, and aluminum layers. Tetra Pak cartons, however, are shipped in giant bales to a facility in Mexico. Aluminum cans and glass bottles are great easy to reuse, handled locally, they can be back on store shelves within a week. Team Recology was at pains to point out that not all recycling is equally good for the planet. communities containing more than 70 million households, according to Tetra Pak). None would talk on the record, the official mandate from on high being that San Francisco does recycle Tetra Paks (as do U.S. ![]() Credit: chris taylor / mashableĬheck with your local recycling program? Sure thing! I talked to folks at Recology, which handles most of the recycling for San Francisco, probably one of the most enlightened recycling programs in America (it diverts more than 80 percent of waste away from landfills). ![]() These ambiguities are just the beginning of how crazy-making it feels when you dig deeper into planet Tetra Pak. Both may or may not be made by Tetra Pak you often have to dig under those folds to find out, which is also where you may or may not find a recycling symbol. You usually put them in the fridge.īoth may or may not have plastic spouts and lids. And there's the "gable top," the one that looks like a regular milk carton. There's the "aseptic," a rectangular box with folds on the top that you might think of as a soup carton, also commonly used for nut milks. In fact, it's the biggest packaging company in the world, period, with nearly $13 billion in annual sales. The privately-held international conglomerate that makes them, also called Tetra Pak, is the biggest packaging company you've never heard of. Like many of us, I once lived my life blissfully unaware of the fact that I am surrounded at all times by that strange hybrid species of packaging known as the Tetra Pak. My adventures in the deep, dark underworld of Tetra Pak cartons began with a simple question: Which recycling bin do I put this thing in? In Mashable’s series Wasted, we dig into the myriad ways we’re trashing our planet. ![]()
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