Recycling Tetrapaks

[juliet]

I have just found out how you can recycle drink cartons (Tetrapaks etc) in the UK, so if you're interested:

General website of organisation.
This download actually covers all the important points (nb word doc).

Basically, what you do is rinse them, squash them flat (by pulling up the 'ears' on top & bottom, & removing any plastic pourers or whatever), pack them in a cardboard box, & post them off to Fife, having stuck on one of the labels from the link above. Unfortunately they don't do freepost any more (because more councils etc are dealing with drinks cartons anyway now, apparently), but they're pretty light so it shouldn't cost that much to post. They want their label stuck on because it's got a little logo on so they can just pulp the lot without opening the box.

Comments

[andyroyal.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I think my old council used to take Tetrapaks but I've just moved and I've no idea about the new recycling arrangements yet. I've just been reading up on PCB recycling too as I've got so many old computer bits just taking up space.

Hope it's OK to add you? I found your journal through Marna.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Ooh!
We get through a fair few tetrapacks, as we drink a lot of juice. I'll bear this in mind.

[vampwillow]

I just wonder how much energy is used in transporting them from London to Fife though (plus energy used in manufacture of the cardboard box, label, stamps, etc.) as compared to disposing of them in some other (acceptable) manner ...

[juliet]

I don't think the issue is just one of energy, though - it's more about factors such as landfill space (we're rapidly running out of it), & avoiding the wastage of resources. If they're sent to landfill you're using a fair amount of energy already, mind - most of London's waste gets shipped to somewhere in Essex.

However, I take the point about energy use, and indeed agree fully with the reduce-reuse-recycle hierarchy. I'll also be encouraging Southwark to institute some form of local disposal (even if it requires taking things to the Walworth Road site, as with plastic bottles currently), since there *is* a centre in Essex (being nearer than Fife!) that takes Tetrapaks, just not one that takes 'em from the general public at present.

As with most of these things, it is about weighing up advantages & disadvantages - I think in this case the extra transport energy is counterbalanced by the avoiding of more useless landfill, and the reuse of the resources themselves, but I agree that it's not a straightforward equation. Certainly recycling is *not* an excuse for consuming more, in general.

[I note in passing that cardboard-box-manufacture is irrelevant since I'll be getting used boxes from one of the local shops, & that gets recycled too; and the labels are printed up by you the viewer not shiny-things]