Sure, I know that tetrapaks go into the „Wertstoffinseln“, we always brought our to those recycling bins. But then, one day, two or three years ago, I became curious: how are they recycled? And I found out two things: a) there are only three places in Europe where tetrapaks which are collected in Germany and „recycled“: two in Germany, and one in Finland! I was shocked! How stupid is this?! Drive all the stuff up to Finland?! And then, second thing: they dissolve all the package, and they only use the paper! The aluminium and the plastic part are „recycled“ as material for „thermal use“ = they burn that! Well, yes, Müllverbrennungsanlagen do generate heat, but they also emit quite some toxic stuff. Therefore, I try to avoid tetrapaks whenever possible.

The problem is that „100% recyclebar“ does tell you anything about how much gets really reused nor does it tell you anything about the amount of ressources necessary to separate the stuff into reusable material Tetrapak lost a court case against Deutsche Umwelthilfe, and now Tetrapak should not be allowed anymore to state this „100% recyclebar“ (because it’s „irreführend“ for the consumer, it misleads people to think the boxes are „green“):http://www.duh.de/pressemitteilung.html…