Another great tip from Green Correspondent Alice. It looks like the Tetrapak carton makers are pushing for every council to start collecting and recycling this ubiquitous packaging that is used for just about every type of consumable liquid.
+ Tetrapak recycling
It's a very informative site with educational info on what the cartons are made of, how they are recycled, what they can become post-recycling plus maps of where in the UK they can be collected.
I looked up our council (Westminster) in London on the 'where are cartons collected' maps and found that Westminster is one of the only councils registered 'not interested'. Come on, Westminster! It's bad enough our block of building doesn't get kerbside recycling (we still lug it to the local sorting bins) but to not even show any interest in collecting a major product is not good enough. Kudos to Tetrapak for actively pursuing more recycling of its own products and informing the public with a website.
It's been an interesting week trying to buy household products and food only made from recyclable packaging. A mixed bag. Literally. For example, I just made a rocket (arugula) salad with fresh mozzarella. The rocket I bought from Waitrose last week was in a recyclable bag made from recycled plastic. However, the rocket I bought from Sainbury's today was in a bag that did not have the recyclable sign, nor was it made from recycled plastic. The Sainsbury's mozzarella was equally guilty. However, Sainsbury's does use some bags that are recyclable, mainly for their organic products. Less confusing were the products in cardboards boxes/cartons and aluminum packaging. All clearly recyclable. And almost all of the plastic packaging we bought was recyclable apart from a few random items we bought at Marks and Spencers and the lunch spot Eat. Things like salad containers that looked like they were candidates for the recycling pile turned out not to have any recycling symbols...
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