Tetrapak are also at the Packaging Sustanibility Forum, they are also in IBAW, along with Stanelco and Natureworks, read into that what you like ....
You may be thinking that this is just 'old news' but it shows that as far back as 2004 Tetrapak were actively looking at the subject of sustainable packaging, Biotec can help them, but thats for another day :)
Tetrapak KNOW from their own report, that only 2% of UK cartons are recycled, and only 30% in the EU, so why not just make them biodegradable ?
The reason they are not biodegradable is because they are laminated with Polythene on the inside, something that could possibly be replaced with Biotec TPS.
What a waste: Recycling rises up the food industry agenda
27 Oct 2004
Source: Catherine Sleep
Some 75% of UK household waste is sent to landfill, with packaging accounting for 25% of this waste. With landfill sites rapidly filling up, we have two options: we can use less packaging or we can recycle more. Catherine Sleep looks at a new report that examines the problems of recycling packaging in the UK and makes ambitious recommendations for policymakers and food and packaging manufacturers.
Although the recycling of packaging in the UK has increased by approximately 10% since 2000, the UK still lags behind the majority of European countries. Food and drink packaging is a significant focus for the problem, and an area in which manufacturers, retailers, policymakers and consumers have a part to play.
A new report commissioned by Tetra Pak and produced by the educational charity Forum for the Future gives some pointers that could help us all do a lot better
UK household waste has increased by 15% in the last five years, as Jonathan Porritt, programme director of Forum for the Future and chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, told a gathering of industry delegates last week. An embarrassing three quarters of this is sent to landfill, compared with 50% in France and just 7% in Switzerland. The UKs domestic waste recycling performance is improving, but it is still near the bottom of the European Union recycling league (14.5% in 2003, compared with Austria 58%, Germany 53% and the Netherlands 59%).
Packaging makes up 25% of the 13-15 million tonnes of household waste that goes to landfill in the UK each year. Last year the UK managed to recycle 47% of this packaging, behind most other EU countries. It was the only country that failed to meet the EU packaging recovery target of 55%.
Its economics, stupid
There are a number of barriers to progress, as the report indicates. For many local authorities, the economics simply dont add up. There are insufficient economic incentives to encourage authorities to implement radical recycling initiatives. Landfill and incineration are still the cheapest disposal options. For example, the landfill tax in the UK is just 13 (US$23.4) per tonne compared with 34 per tonne in Denmark. As Friends of the Earth points out, incineration currently has more tax breaks than recycling.
Furthermore, weight-based waste collection targets for local authorities hamper the recovery of lightweight packaging. Weight-based targets encourage authorities to go for heavier collectables such as glass, paper and green waste, while lightweight packaging such as plastic and aluminium is neglected.
The bias towards heavy materials has led to questionable outcomes. For example, the UK is currently exporting over a million tonnes of recovered paper as far as China because there is too much of it for UK markets, and importing recovered aluminium to keep the UK aluminium recycling industry going. In 2003, Alcan, the UK market leader, bought 10,000 tonnes of aluminium cans recovered from the UK and had to import 45,000 tonnes from all over the world. Yet three out of four aluminium cans consumed in the UK (about 3.25 billion cans) were sent to landfill or incineration (Source: Based on conversation with Paul Williams, Alcan, August 2004). According to Alcan, recycling aluminium cans saves up to 95% of the energy needed to make cans from raw materials,
Other forms of lightweight packaging, such as liquid cartons, are hardly collected at all. In 2003, only 2% of liquid cartons were recycled in the UK, according to Tetra Pak estimates, while the average for the EU was 30% (Source: Unpublished data from Tetra Pak).
Download the Tetrapak report here ....
http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/TetraPakWastedopportunities_pdf_media_public.aspx