See if your community offers curbside recycling of cartons; visit www.aseptic.org. Curbside carton recycling includes standard gable top cartons and aseptic brick packages. If your community does not have curbside pick up, phone your municipal recycling facility and ask, “Why not?” Cartons should be as important to recycle as bottles and cans.

When we think of recycling beverage containers, the plastic bottle or the aluminum can come to mind. The prolific use and discard of these holders of liquids has spurred us on to enact anti-litter laws, collect used bottles and cans, and to recycle. As systems to recycle beverage containers evolve, our focus (at least in the USA) seems to still revolve around the collection of PET plastic, aluminum cans, and glass. While advancements in packaging technology have brought us beverage products packaged in “long life packaging” like the Tetrapak® aseptic brick, little has been done (at least in our country) to “sort out” how these useful multi-material packages can be recycled. (more…)