Can you recycle tetra paks and soft plastic?

There is a lot of confusion about the recycling of tetra paks and soft plastic.

Materials like glass and aluminium cans are easily recyclable and can be recycled multiple times. There are plenty of other materials where recycling is much more problematic.

Tetra paks are the cartons that you buy for milks, juices, soups and sauces. The material looks and feels like a waxy type of cardboard. 

If you look at a typical Tetra Pak carton it will say it is 100% recyclable. However, if you put tetra paks in your recycle bin they won’t get recycled! You can put the plastic lid in the recycling bin but not the carton. 

The recycling advice is to squash them before placing the lid back in the carton and then take the tetra packs to a recycling centre.

Tetra packs are made of thin layers of different materials - plastic sheets, aluminium, and cardboard. The reality is that recycling tetra packs is complex and energy intensive. The recycling results in much lower grade materials and there is only one recycling plant in the whole of the UK near Halifax.

Soft plastic such as plastic bags, crisp packets, salad bags, wrapping or plastic film also can’t be put in your recycling bin. Moreover they can’t be taken to a recycling centre either!

Supermarkets are the main users of these plastics and some supermarkets offer a recycling service. You need to ensure that the soft plastic is cleaned as far as practical. There has been a lot of noise about whether  this plastic is in fact recycled or just ends up in landfill overseas. In  any event the recycling of these materials is also complex and results in much lower grade material.

The short answer to the question is that tetra paks and soft plastic are both theoretically recyclable. The reality is most people don’t follow the required recycling route and when they do the recycling process is useful but limited in scope. There isn’t really any getting away from the fact that we need to significantly reduce our use of this type of packaging.