Renfrewshire Council

Food and drink cartons (Tetrapak) of all shapes and sizes are recyclable. Increasingly they are being collected as part of household recycling schemes but in some parts of the country, they have to be recycled at local recycling centres.

Tetrapak can be recycled at your doorstep and is one of the many items that you can dispose of by putting in your green bin. Please rinse and squash them before putting into your green bin. Renfrewshire Household Waste Recycling Centres also accept cartons and Tetrapak.

Tetrapaks are composite packaging material, they are not made from paper alone but comprise of about 75% paper, 20% plastic (polyethylene) and 5 % aluminium foil (for long-life products).

When these items are being recycled the baled cartons are dropped into a pulper, similar to a giant domestic food mixer, filled with water and pulped for 20 minutes. This delaminates the packaging, allowing the aluminium foil and polythylene to be separated from the paper fibres which are recovered to make new paper products. The non-fibre remainder can be used in a number of applications including garden furniture and roofing materials.

In September 2013, the UK's only beverage carton recycling facility was opened in Stainland, near Halifax, West Yorkshire. The plant is capable of recycling up to 40% (25,000 tonnes) of the cartons manufactured for the UK market each year. You can watch the short film which shows the actual process of carton recycling in this facility here.

Blue Bin ✘

Green Bin ✔

Brown Bin ✘

Food Caddy ✘

Grey Bin ✘

Household Waste Recycling Centre ✔