Whats in your Tetra Pak???

Hello Ladies and Gents,

Sorry for the long wait, I have had a manic week with Transition related goodness.  But here it is..... finally..... as promised.  Now, I have spent the last two days putting together a whole ream of information about the Tetra Pak products and the company, trying to create an unbiased description of environmental credentials of the packages, and then I thought, 'This is a blog, not a bloody book,' so I have condensed the information down to the most plastic related parts and saved my big long blurb in a folder, just in case I decide to right a book. 

So whats in your Tetra Pak??

Now my personal favourite is the good old Innocent smoothie.  Not being fruit lovers its one of the best ways me and my fella get our five a day.  Then there is Soya Milk,  Apple Juice and many other deliciously freshing liquids.  But I am afraid to say that there is also some plastic in the form of layers of polyethylene.  In the famous words of Homer Simpson..... DOH!!!!

So a week ago!!!!  I really needed some milk, but we had polished off the milk from good old Maurice, so I thought I would dance with the devil a little bit and bought a delightful looking TetraPak of delamere Channel Island Milk.  I tell you what is some damn delicious milk as well, it seems thicker than your average semi-skimmed, it was a delight.  But I had a little inckling that this TetraPak had a certain banned material in it and sure enough it does.

Pie Chart from www.tetrapak.com

Tetra Pak contains three raw materials; Paperboard 73%, Polyethylene (Plastic) 22% and Aluminium 5%. 

The polyethylene provides a moisture barrier internally and externally as well as playing the role as an adhesive to stick all the layers together.

The most energy expensive parts of the life cycle of the Tetra Pak are the acquisition of the raw materials and the transportation of the packages to the consumers home!!!

On the Tetra Pak website you can find your specific package model and find out its Carbon Footprint.

So my Channel Island Milk came out of a Tetra Rex Base, and the website Carbon Calculator says that for raw material acquisition and transport 37g of CO2 were emitted.  When you add on the emissions for the conversion of the raw materials into the carton package, there is an extra 10g, bringing the carton to a total of 47g of CO2.  You can then choose to see what this equates to in your day to day life and my Channel Island Milk carton (before filling and transporting to the shop and then me taking it home and before recycling) has a carbon footprint equivalent to half and hour or T.V viewing!!! 

There is a fab little website about Tetra Pak lifecycles at http://campaign.tetrapak.com/lifeofapackage/, do have a gander. 

Now with my lent challenge the issue is the plastic, but this all starts to make me think that actually, how does this compare to a regular plastic bottle of milk and then to a glass bottle?  Which of these three would be the lesser evil when it comes to carbon footprint and resources wasting?

Now Pablo Paster of TreeHugger.com, gave some indication of the impacts to answer the question 'Which Milk container has the lowest carbon emmisions?'

He determined through some clever maths calculations that when comparing a glass milk bottle, with a plastic one and a tetra pak, that actually the milk bottle had the highest emmissions due to its weight and the energy required to make and recycle the glass.  Tetra Pak had the lowest emissions due to its weight, energy efficient processing and the maximised used of renewable materials.  The issue with the cartons, which Tetra Pak are all too aware of, is the low recyclability of the plastic and aluminium in the cartons.

And now there is a NEW KID on the milk aisle, the PAPIER-MACHE bottle invented by Suffolk fella Martin Mysercough.  There is still a plastic bag to hold the milk on the inside of the bottle, but the carbon footprint is half of that produced by a regular milk bottle.  Lets see how he fairs in the Asda pilot scheme.

So currently the individual has a two choices, the lowest carbon footprint or 100% recycling opportunity.  Currently we cant have both, but corporate companies are increasingly investing money into finding even better alternatives for carbon happy, wasteless life cycles.  At the end of the day, finding these solutions is beneficial for us all.

I am not sure which I believe is better, I need to think it over for a little while longer.  For me it requires careful consideration of localisation, as the figures I have read are all averages and estimates.  The ability of my Cambridge County Council to recycle all the contents of a Tetra Pak as well as the where the Tetra Pak is travelling from to get to my supermarket, need to be considered.  Equally I need to find out if the glass bottles I am currently recieving are being sterilised and reused, as opposed to melted down, and where exactely is my milk coming from?  One thing I am sure about however, is that I really dont need to go back to the plastic milk bottle.  YEY!!!

Love and hugs,

Jade.