Can drink cartons reduce our waste?

Drink cartons present a particular challenge for recycling because they are made of multiple layers of material: paper, plastic and aluminium foil. Consumers need to be convinced that a drink carton can be recycled and to separate out drink cartons from the rest of their household waste. For the waste management industry, specialist technology is needed, which may require a substantial financial investment.

In 2003 the rate of recycling of materials from beverage cartons in the EU15 was 30%. But the EU has set overall targets for the recycling of packaging waste of 55-80%. And for paper packaging - into which category drink cartons fall - the recycling target is 60%. So the EU will have to improve its performance in handling and treating drink cartons, which make up 5% of all paper packaging.

Germany’s Umweltbundesamt (Federal Environment Agency) commissioned a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study in 2000 which concluded that beverage cartons were "environmentally advantageous" and that their environmental profile was as good as a recyclable bottle.

"The Germans were the pioneers in beverage carton recycling in the early 1990s when everyone believed Tetra Pak cartons were not recyclable," explains Erika Mink, European environment director for Tetra Pak, which dominates the market in beverage cartons. In general its products are made of 74% paper, 20% polyethylene and 4% aluminium. Paper, the main ingredient in a beverage carton, has a more positive environmental profile than plastic, for example, because paper, when produced in a sustainable way, is a renewable resource.

Out of the one million tonnes produced every year, 300,000 turned into paper products are recycled in 20 paper mills around Europe into new paper products like office stationery, tissue paper, cardboard, corrugated board and paper bags.

Different countries have developed different ways of collecting used cartons. In Austria, citizens are expected to collect the cartons and put them in a special box for doorstep collection. In some countries, including the Baltic states, Finland, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, cartons are collected with other paper and paper packaging. In others, including Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Spain, cartons are collected with plastic bottle and cans, so before recycling they have to be separated out, either by hand or machinery.

Some countries have a very low recycling rate for beverage cartons. In the UK only 3% of beverage cartons are collected and recycled. Tetra Pak is currently discussing beverage carton recycling with UK paper mills. But the UK has yet to develop a green dot system, such as those in Germany and Belgium, by which the industry and the consumers are made responsible for collecting and recycling their waste.

A recycling plant specifically for beverage cartons was in 1999 built in Germany in the Niederauer Muehle paper factory.

It recycles 100,000 tonnes of beverage cartons a year, that is one-third of the total amount recycled in Europe, many from elsewhere in Europe. Of the beverage cartons collected in Belgium, 90% are exported to Germany’s paper mill. Olaf Lang, sales director for Niederauer Muehle, explains that "you need to have enough tonnage in order to have a return on investment" and this is why many countries export their beverage carton waste to another state which has the recycling capacities. Niederauer Muehle gets its beverage cartons from Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Hungary.

In the recycling process, cartons are put into large drums, like huge washing machines. There water is introduced and the materials are mixed together vigorously. The paper fibres are separated from the other materials and are then pumped out of the hydrapulper and recycled as paper products.

What happens with the aluminium and plastic residues that have been separated from the paper fibres is more complicated. In Finland they are recovered as energy which is used in the same paper mill. In Germany they are sent to cement kilns where the polyethylene is used as an energy fuel and the aluminium is used in the cement.

According to Lang, beverage cartons are 100% recyclable.

Special equipment for separating plastic and aluminium with plasma technology is currently being tested in a factory in Brazil, located in Piracicaba, near São Paulo. It is the first plant in history to have the capacity to separate the aluminium and plastic components used in packaging cartons. Some beverage carton recycling factories in Europe are looking to install this technology in the near future.

Drink cartons present a particular challenge for recycling because they are made of multiple layers of material: paper, plastic and aluminium foil. Consumers need to be convinced that a drink carton can be recycled and to separate out drink cartons from the rest of their household waste. For the waste management industry, specialist technology is needed, which may require a substantial financial investment.