Tetra Pak

One of the many wondrous things I've learned in Germany is that Tetra Pak is recyclable. (As you know, the Germans are gifted recyclers, some of the best in Europe.)  Tetra Pak (henceforth TP), in case you never knew or hadn't yet thought about it, is the coated cardboard box often used for beverages, soups, and whatnot. The cardboard is coated with aluminum and plastic making it light, sterile (aseptic is the official word for packaging, I just learned), and recyclable!  I cannot stop being fascinated by this. 

If you think about it, it's really amazing.  They are able to separate all these layers into reuseable byproducts.  The plastic becomes paraffin, the aluminum foil can be recovered and reused, and the cardboard paperboard becomes fiber for new paper.  For someone who was not so very long ago taking labels off soup cans to recycle them, or rather to try to (now is not the time to get into Chicago's heartbreaking recycling system), this is a miracle of technology.  Let me be clear -- I'm not so simple that I think this is as exciting as NANOTECHNOLOGY or anything, but what I am struck by is that it is actually occurring now -- that the system is in place and it is happening! 

I must admit that the details also interest me in a way that makes me wonder if I was a paper engineer or at least a packaging major in a previous life.  (I won't be offended if you're not and stop reading.  I've taken my fair share of bemused and strange looks for this obsession already.) The composition of TP is usually 75% duplex paper, 20% polyethylene, and 5% aluminum.  The aluminum keeps the air and light out, keeping things fresh.  I finally found some details and it appears that during recycling the packages are broken down into a slurry, which allows the plastic and aluminum to be separated from the paper.  If the plastic and aluminum are heated, they can be further separated into paraffin and aluminum.  

Some Brazilians wrote a very interesting technical paper on this that I was able to make some sense of, if, like me, you're wondering how the plastic and the aluminum don't form a big glob.  (There are photos!)  

The next time you use corrugated paper, cardboard, egg cartons, shoe soles, paper towels, or molded metal parts; stack juiceboxes into a pyramid; buy unrefrigerated milk; or get a paraffin treatment, know that chances are these products are not recycled from TP.  But just spend a moment thinking about the miracle of Tetra Pak anyway.