Recycling Tetrapak (merged)

Rather than shipping these packs here there and everywhere we need MS to share ideas on how to re use them. Firstly I would like to know how to make the bags with them, anyone know of a link?

Also the bottom half of tetras make good flower pots for seedlings.

More ideas please.

Mids_Costcutter wrote: »

Does anyone know why the Tetrapak recycling facility in Fife closed down?

Because it wasn't economic to run.

Tetra Paks were invented before anybody was that concerned about recycling. A standard Tetra Pak is 70-90 per cent cardboard, 10-25 per cent polyethylene and around 5 per cent aluminium foil. The combination of different materials is a nightmare to deal with and paper mills cannot process them using traditional methods. The method to process them is very energy intensive so it costs more to extract the paper.

Also the only element that can be recycled is the paper, so the polyethylene and aluminium (up to 30% of the product) is either still sent to landfill or is incinerated.

But Mr Hans Rausing would quite like you to keep buying products in Tetra Paks, even though they are tricky to recycle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rausing

Altarf wrote: »

Because it wasn't economic to run.

Also the only element that can be recycled is the paper, so the polyethylene and aluminium (up to 30% of the product) is either still sent to landfill or is incinerated.

Thanks for the explanation Altarf, but why isn't it economic to recycle Tetrapak in the UK when it has a much larger population than Norway or Sweden and seems to be collecting from a good number of local councils plus supermarkets now? Is it just down to quantities or do governments in Sweden / Norway subsidise the recycling operations? Also surely the aluminium is the most valuable material to extract when recycling, although a much smaller proportion of Tetrapak than paper? I thought alu has quite a high scrap value?

Not really money saving, but it is a "green" issue.

I just wanted to make people aware that tetrapaks are recyclable (you know, juice and milk cartons).

In the past, most local authorities won't accept them as the recycling facilities were not in place, however, they are now!!! So, even though you can't put them in your domestic recycle bin that gets picked up by the friendly bin man in most areas, something like 75% of local authorities now accept tetrapaks to recycle and you can take them to Tesco's and large supermarkets.

The move to recycle tetrapaks is quite new, so recycling points are not everywhere yet, but they are there! I checked my local area and there's about 3 points within 5 mins drive of where I live!!! It makes me want to use tetrapaks more and more now as the thought of the cartons being managed from a sustainable forest is more appealing to me than using a plastic bottle which is non renewable and although it is also recyclable, plastic is a continuous drain on our resources and cannot be renewed (like the sustained / managed forests used in tetrapaks).

You can go here to find out more and see where your local recycling point is!!!

tetrapakrecycling.co.uk

Hi steve-o, we have a long thread on here that I'll merge this one with to keep it all together.