10000 tons Tetra style packages get recycled every year in Sweden. That’s way more than I feared. I’m such a pessimist and knowing how Tetra loves to greenwash things, I expected way less. This is millions of packages.
Just over half of what gets collected (19800 tons), the rest is used as fuel.
This was reported as a downer story by people less pessimistic than me and my fear is that it’d be even more grist for all sloppy readers who say “see? there’s no point trying to recycle” and use this as an excuse to not.
But I’m actually pretty impressed that it isn’t way worse.
Now, yes, plastic is not OK and recycling is a pathetically insufficient harm reduction and ultimately we do need to leave the oil in the ground and end all plastic use, but while we’re trying to do that, putting stuff in the recycling bin is better than putting it in the trash. Way better.
Ideally, do not buy these packages. But if you do, recycle them.
Refuse < reduce < reuse < recycle.