With 22 April - Earth Day - just two weeks away, Tetra Pak is marking the event with an overview of some of its recent recycling initiatives.
According to the World Bank, global waste is predicted to increase 70% by 2050 unless immediate and significant action is taken. For Tetra Pak, this action is directed at strategies that help turn all components of a used carton package into quality materials and goods.
From expanding recycling capacity via multi-stakeholder cooperation, through boosting new market opportunities for recycled materials to re-inventing sorting for a more holistic waste management system, Tetra Pak's recycling efforts are all aimed at helping to keep valuable materials in use and out of landfills, and have been for many years.
Among other things, decades of investment in recycling have resulted in an increase in the number of recycling operations handling cartons worldwide from 40 in 2010 to more than 200 today.
More recently, Tetra Pak has entered into partnerships focused on not only on creating additional recycling capacity but also on increasing collection rates and ensuring that materials from post-consumer beverage cartons can re-enter the economy. One such initiative involves conducting a joint feasibility study with Stora Enso and includes a plan for a recycling facility at Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge site in Belgium; another is the implementation of a large-scale carton repulping line at Stora Enso’s Ostrołęka production unit in Poland, that uses a patented separation technology to recover and separately recycle the polymers and the aluminium carton components.
With investments amounting to nearly €30 million in collection and recycling projects worldwide in 2021 and with plans to expand this up to €40 million annually in the years to come, Tetra Pak is putting its money where its mouth is. As part of the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE), the company supports the industry ambition to increase the collection of beverage cartons for recycling to 90% and the recycling rate to 70%, in the EU, by 2030.
Paper-based beverage cartons are recyclable where adequate collection, sorting and recycling infrastructures are in place. In 2021 alone, an estimated 1.2 million tonnes of beverage cartons were collected and sent for recycling, the company said. However, ‘the picture is very fragmented across the globe’ and building a circular economy requires system-wide action and cooperation, supported by a regulatory framework that creates the conditions to turn challenges into opportunities, said Markus Pfanner, vice president of sustainability operations at Tetra Pak. He emphasised that ‘We need to move away from a linear ‘take-make-waste’ model towards a more connected circular economy. But being part of a circular solution can’t be driven singlehandedly by one individual or entity – scientists, policymakers, recyclers and industry players and citizens must work together.’
The company's goals also include realising the national recyclability criteria for its packaging in all the countries where in which it operates and fulfilling the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Global Commitment, a common vision of a circular economy for plastics. Tethered caps, low-carbon renewable materials, the use of certified recycled polymers, and design for recycling - these are all focus areas, said the company, towards achieving a more sustainable carton.
Tetra Pak’s circularity agenda is guided by the three principles of designing out waste and pollution; keeping products and materials in use; and regenerating natural systems. All three are key to keeping quality materials in circulation and minimise the use of new ones, noted Christine Levêque, vice president of collection and recycling at Tetra Pak.
“None of these developments could be realised without our 70 experts around the globe, who are collaborating every day with recyclers, local authorities and food and beverage manufacturers to drive the transformation needed to scale up collection and recycling,” she added.