How Can I Recycle Cardboard Milk, Soymilk, and Juice Cartons?
26th May, 2010 - Posted by carsi - 3 Comments
The city of Austin does not provide recycling for those waxy cardboard containers that milk, soymilk, orange juice, vegetable broth, some soups, etc. come in. This has been getting on my nerves lately because I go through SO many of those containers! At first, Katherine and I thought it’d be better to buy milk and juice in plastic containers, since those are recycled by the city. However, plastic is made out of oil, whereas these paperboard containers are made out of, well, paper, which is a renewable resource. Also, a lot of products (soy, almond, rice, and organic milk) don’t come in any other kinds of packaging. So I decided to go on a hunt for some place, any place, in Austin that would recycle these cardboard containers. Nothing. No one takes them. So I emailed the TCEQ to see if they had any suggestions. I got a response that sent me to this website, which lists locations for recycling certain products all over Texas. By searching for ‘paper – acrylic coated’ and ‘paperboard (chipboard) polycoated (aseptic packaging)’, a couple locations around Texas showed up, which is helpful, but not too helpful for Austinites, since the closest places listed are the cities of Bertram and La Grange. I think it might be a good idea to let the city know that we need to provide recycling for acrylic coated paperboard or aseptic packaging. If you feel the same way, tell Solid Waste Services or contact the Mayor and City Council Members and let them know we need more options for recycling this kind of packaging in Austin. And if any of our readers know of a place that I haven’t found where they recycle that stuff, please let us know!
Posted on: May 26, 2010
Filed under: recycling
3 Comments
Walt
May 27th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Tetra briks (what those containers are called) are actually a combination of paper, plastic and aluminum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetra_Brik
Definitely not as much as a regular milk carton, but I’m also always toiling with this problem too…
It’s good to know La Grange has processing facilities though. I go through there every so often, so maybe I’ll stockpile my empties. Or fill them with concrete and build a fort…
carsi
May 27th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Thanks for the link! A fort sounds promising–reusing these cartons seems like the only way to keep them out of the landfill!
Greening Austin Daily » The City Responds to My Recycling Dilemma
June 16th, 2010 at 10:45 am
[...] few weeks ago, I lamented about how there are no places in Austin to recycle aseptic cardboard containers, also known as [...]
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