Statistically speaking, every German reaches for products in beverage cartons 75 times a year. Composite cardboard packaging mainly consists of cellulose, with thin layers of plastic and aluminium.

The three market leaders Tetra Pak (Lund, Sweden; www.tetrapak.com), SIG Combibloc (Neuhausen, Switzerland; www.sig.biz), and Elopak (Spikkestad, Norway; www.elopak.com), which produce 95% of all beverage carton packaging used in Germany, are making major adjustments in the materials they use. Depending on the filling material, either the polymer content is set to be reduced or there are plans to omit aluminium layers in the coming years.

SIG Combibloc aims to develop an aseptic packaging material without aluminium “with full barrier protection” and a paper fibre content of at least 90% by 2030, with an interim target of at least 85% by 2025. “The polymer content in a standard carton pack with an aluminium layer is currently around 21%,” a spokesperson told Plasteurope.com, adding that the company aims to increase the paper fibre content, reduce the amount of polymers used and thus pave the way towards making the packs usable for the paper recycling stream.

The manufacturer of carton composite packaging and filling machines is currently not providing any details regarding the exact specifications. However, the company states that it aims to ensure that carton packaging can be recycled anywhere in the world, “especially in markets that have little established recycling infrastructure”.

Elopak also wants to further reduce the proportion of plastics in its composite packaging, a company spokesperson told PIE. A standard 1-litre carton currently consists of around 12% LDPE; the rest is made up of the carton sleeve, which also provides the necessary stability, and aluminium as a barrier layer, which is particularly necessary for fresh food. In 2022, for example, Elopak launched Pure-Pak eSense, an aseptic carton in which the aluminium barrier is replaced by a polyolefin mixture. 

However, changing the laminate structure influences not only the subsequent recycling streams, but also – keyword Green Deal – the carbon footprint of the packaging. In Portugal, Tetra Pak and milk and dairy group Lactogal recently developed a fibre-based barrier beverage carton that reduces its carbon footprint by around a third compared to a standard carton, according to Tetra Pak.

According to the German federal environment agency Umweltbundesamt (UBA, Dessau; www.umweltbundesamt.de), around 182,200 t of beverage cartons were placed on the market in Germany in 2020, for example as a packaging solution for milk, where cardboard composite is far ahead of glass or plastic bottles, with a market share of 99.5% for UHT milk and 88.7% for fresh milk (Source: Nielsen 2019).

In Germany, beverage cartons are disposed of by the Duales System packaging recycling schemes – provided consumers dispose of them in the dedicated bags or bins and do not cause any “misthrows” by placing them in residual waste bins or recycling containers for paper. On behalf of the dual systems, the cardboard composite packaging is then sent to paper mills for further recycling, where the fibre content is separated from the aluminium-plastic fraction and recycled. The aluminium-plastics fraction, the so-called reject, is then largely incinerated as an aggregate in the cement industry.

Related: Poland’s recycling capacity for post-consumer beverage cartons set to triple

Since 2021, the reject can also be recycled – two years ago, the first recycling plant for the recovery of thin PE-aluminium foil and HDPE closures went into operation near Cologne. The operator is Palurec, whose sole shareholder is the liquid-food carton association Fachverband Kartonverpackungen für flüssige Nahrungsmittel (FKN, Berlin; www.getraenkekarton.de). This association in turn includes the three market leaders.

In addition to the 18,000 t/y Palurec plant, Saperatec (Dessau-Roßlau, Germany; www.saperatec.de) plans to commission a similarly sized recycling plant in Dessau in 2024, which is also to process plastics and aluminium components from beverage cartons in addition to composite films.

UBA has commissioned an analysis of the impact of PE-aluminium recovery on the recyclability of beverage cartons from market research institute Gesellschaft für Verpackungsmarktforschung (GVM, Mainz, Germany; www.gvmonline.de). The resulting study on the proportion of highly recyclable packaging subject to system participation on the German market shows that, thanks to the Palurec plant and its recycling of poylethylene and aluminium, all beverage cartons on the German market are expected to be 90% or more recyclable by 2025. Specifically, the study calculates a recyclability of between 90% and 95% for 71.8% of beverage cartons, while the remaining 28.2% could even achieve a recyclability of more than 95%.

While this may seem like a positive outlook on paper, the central agency packaging register Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (ZSVR, Osnabrück, Germany; www.verpackungsregister.org) currently sees a need for action. “In the case of beverage carton packaging and other composite packaging, a large part of the recycling capacity was lost in 2022 due to the high energy prices,” CEO Gunda Rachut said on 4 December at the presentation of the recovery and recycling figures for 2022, adding that this does not release the manufacturers from their product responsibility and the dual systems from complying with the legal requirements.

Rachut also said that, if necessary, the existing plants would have to be paid adequate prices or new recycling capacities would have to be created: “There is an acute need for action here!”

The German Packaging Act (VerpackG) requires a recycling rate of 80% for beverage cartons. According to ZSVR, this rate was at 64.8% in 2022. 

Meanwhile, Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH, Berlin; www.duh.de) has warned that the reported quotas are too high. The problem: the recycling rates refer to the quantities collected by the dual systems. However, according to the DUH, in practice around a third of the quantities placed on the market currently end up incorrectly disposed of in residual waste or in the paper bin. Beverage carton packaging is currently incinerated in both of these recycling streams.