Easily Recyclable

Our cartons are fully recyclable. Recycling lessens the need for virgin material and reduces waste. Our clear goal is to prevent our cartons from going to landfill and we strongly promote the recycling of cartons.

Paper fibers from beverage cartons are highly desirable because they consist of strong virgin fibers. Our cartons contain fibers of very high quality that can be recycled up to seven times. After collection and sorting, beverage cartons go to dedicated paper recycling mills. Here, water and agitation separate the paper fiber from the plastic and aluminum layers. The result is a paper fraction used to make new products, such as paper towels, tissue and office paper. 

The polymers and aluminum fraction (known as polyal) can be reprocessed in a number of ways. The polyal can be sent on for further recycling, such as producing ceiling tiles or wallboard, or can be used for energy to fuel the paper mill.

Instead of a paper mill, cartons can also be sent to a recycling company that turns cartons into building materials. Cartons are shredded, then heat is applied and they are pressed back together into large sheets – Like a panini press made of shredded cartons! About 30 cartons can be made into a single 2’x2’ ceiling tile, while roughly 400 cartons make up a full wallboard.

Read about cartons recycling.

The beverage carton recycling rate in Europe has been steadily increasing over the past 20 years. In 2018, the average recycling rate in Europe rose to 49%. Canada recycles 60% of its beverage cartons. Over 60% of U.S. citizens have access to beverage carton recycling.

Whether a carton is recycled or not depends on the local and national systems in place for collection, sorting and recyling.
The challenge is to make national collection and recycling facilities more widely available and easily accessible, so more people can recycle. Therefore, Elopak works together with industry peers to increase and strengthen the collection and recycling of cartons in our markets. The beverage carton industry continues to support recycling through promoting innovation in recycling solutions, stakeholder engagement and collaboration.

Elopak is an active member of dedicated beverage carton associations in many countries. Here you can learn more about how some of these countries collect and recycle beverage cartons: USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary. Elopak is a founding member of EXTR:ACT, an organization dedicated to increasing the collection and recycling of beverage cartons in Europe. In North America, Elopak is a member of the Carton Council of Canada and of the North American Carton Council.