Tetrapak Challenge

Ever since Benjymous mentioned tetrapak recycling in a comment a few weeks ago, I knew it would make a great Bean Sprouts challenge. I put quite a lot of tetrapaks in my black landfill bin, and I never knew there was a better alternative.

Tetrapak have a website all about recycling their packaging in the UK. It's a deeply irritating website with lots of stupid videos and animated text you can't avoid but have to wait for every time you load a new page. They really should stop doing that. But it does have some neat features. I waded my way through it so you don't have to.

The interactive map is useful, for example. You can click on your area and find out what kind of tetrapak recycling is available to you, whether they're kerbside collections (sadly rare) or recycling banks. It also gives you the location of your nearest carton recycling bank. Some areas are labelled as having no local recycling, but don't despair.

If your local council doesn't offer any tetrapak recycling facilities, you can post cartons back to the manufacturer for recycling. You can even print out postage labels, but you'll have to pay the postage as it isn't freepost.

You can recycle all kids of tetrapak cartons - milk, juice, soup, smoothies, custard etc. You should rinse them out before recycling, whether you're posting them or dropping them off at a bank. It's probably easier to rinse then if you cut the top open, rather than trying to get water in and out of a narrow plastic spout. When they're clean you should squash them flat, because they'll be easier to post that way, and you can fit more in the recycling bank before it needs emptying. You can snip off any plastic spout if it helps to flatten them, but it is not necessary as it will be removed as part of the recycling process. If you post them, you should put them in a cardboard box (an old cereal packet or something will be fine), not a jiffy bag, because the whole package can then be dropped into the recycling machine.

The website also has some fun ideas, like crafts using tetrapaks. You can download a leaflet with instructions for making a jointed panda puppet and a viking ship out of old juice cartons.

So, will you take the Tetrapak challenge and start recycling your cartons? I'm going to add a new recycling container to our household to store washed flattened tetrapaks, and take them to the recycling bank at the civic centre once a week. Whatever you decide, don't forget to vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar.