Making the world better?
“A world of good in every carton.”
That’s how the folks at Tetra Pak want us to see them. They – their marketing gurus anyway -- go on to say, “At Tetra Pak, we create smart food processing and carton packaging solutions that help make the world better, and each day our products meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world.”
The words make it sound so good, so beneficent. However ... my impression of Tetra Pak is based not on the marketing blurbs but primarily on the empty wine boxes which have become a new and significant form of litter along our streets. They’re about as common now as aluminum cans, that is, empty beer and soft drink containers. Of course, aluminum cans may still be getting tossed out of passing vehicles in more volume than Tetra Paks. But, aluminum cans have some value – in quantity, they can be recycled for cash – so cans are being picked up by people in need of a few bucks. Whereas, there’s no such bounty on Tetra Paks. They can be recycled, at least in theory, but there’s no money to be had for collecting and turning them in.
About the recycling part, though. It’s not as straightforward as the company would like us to think. Below is an excerpt from the book Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans, by Capt. Charles Moore and Cassandra Phillips
“The faux green tour de force might be the Swedish-born Tetra Pak. Until very recently, Tetra Pak was the largest packaging company in the world. (Amcor bought half of Alcan in 2010, becoming the biggest.) Its inventor, Ruben Rausing, died in 1983, the richest man in Sweden. But Tetra Pak is still impressive, being essentially a niche product. On one hand, this container-package in its several guises is a miracle of materials engineering. It’s the ultimate hybrid: six super-thin layers of low-density polyethylene, paper and aluminum foil that are laminated, sterilized in a fog of hydrogen peroxide, dried, cut, folded, filled from the bottom with liquids flash pasteurized (in the case of milk and other products prone to contamination) using UHT (“ultra high temperature”) technology that kills pathogens but, the company claims, preserves nutrients. The rectangular cartons are packed into shipping cases with no space wasted—a soup can or wine bottle can’t make the same claim—and are lightweight, airtight, and protectively opaque. The format allows shelf storage of a year or more. At natural-food stores—wonderlands of eco-cognitive dissonance—various non-dairy milks (soy, rice, almond, oat) as well as organic soups come in Tetra Paks. The famous “juice box” is a Tetra Pak and a common beach cleanup item, as is its little detachable plastic straw. Now wine in Tetra Paks is catching on, and these screw-off plastic caps have become beach litter. Twenty-two billion of these containers are produced each year.
The company’s marketing material makes extravagant claims of sustainability. The paper is sourced whenever possible from managed forests. The product-to-packaging ratio is the best in the business, 96 percent, better than PET bottles, and leaves glass in the dust. And it’s recyclable. Yes, Tetra Pak has a special technology that pulps the cartons and separates the different materials so the paper can be turned into toilet paper. Only, this technology is not readily available: Florida is home to the only facility in the United States.”
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/plastic-ocean-charles-moore/1110...
Making the world better?
“A world of good in every carton.”
That’s how the folks at Tetra Pak want us to see them. They – their marketing gurus anyway -- go on to say, “At Tetra Pak, we create smart food processing and carton packaging solutions that help make the world better, and each day our products meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world.”
The words make it sound so good, so beneficent. However ... my impression of Tetra Pak is based not on the marketing blurbs but primarily on the empty wine boxes which have become a new and significant form of litter along our streets. They’re about as common now as aluminum cans, that is, empty beer and soft drink containers. Of course, aluminum cans may still be getting tossed out of passing vehicles in more volume than Tetra Paks. But, aluminum cans have some value – in quantity, they can be recycled for cash – so cans are being picked up by people in need of a few bucks. Whereas, there’s no such bounty on Tetra Paks. They can be recycled, at least in theory, but there’s no money to be had for collecting and turning them in.
About the recycling part, though. It’s not as straightforward as the company would like us to think. Below is an excerpt from the book Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans, by Capt. Charles Moore and Cassandra Phillips
“The faux green tour de force might be the Swedish-born Tetra Pak. Until very recently, Tetra Pak was the largest packaging company in the world. (Amcor bought half of Alcan in 2010, becoming the biggest.) Its inventor, Ruben Rausing, died in 1983, the richest man in Sweden. But Tetra Pak is still impressive, being essentially a niche product. On one hand, this container-package in its several guises is a miracle of materials engineering. It’s the ultimate hybrid: six super-thin layers of low-density polyethylene, paper and aluminum foil that are laminated, sterilized in a fog of hydrogen peroxide, dried, cut, folded, filled from the bottom with liquids flash pasteurized (in the case of milk and other products prone to contamination) using UHT (“ultra high temperature”) technology that kills pathogens but, the company claims, preserves nutrients. The rectangular cartons are packed into shipping cases with no space wasted—a soup can or wine bottle can’t make the same claim—and are lightweight, airtight, and protectively opaque. The format allows shelf storage of a year or more. At natural-food stores—wonderlands of eco-cognitive dissonance—various non-dairy milks (soy, rice, almond, oat) as well as organic soups come in Tetra Paks. The famous “juice box” is a Tetra Pak and a common beach cleanup item, as is its little detachable plastic straw. Now wine in Tetra Paks is catching on, and these screw-off plastic caps have become beach litter. Twenty-two billion of these containers are produced each year.
The company’s marketing material makes extravagant claims of sustainability. The paper is sourced whenever possible from managed forests. The product-to-packaging ratio is the best in the business, 96 percent, better than PET bottles, and leaves glass in the dust. And it’s recyclable. Yes, Tetra Pak has a special technology that pulps the cartons and separates the different materials so the paper can be turned into toilet paper. Only, this technology is not readily available: Florida is home to the only facility in the United States.”
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/plastic-ocean-charles-moore/1110...