Planet Ark is using National Recycling Week to draw consumers' attention to misguided carton disposal.
According to Planet Ark's latest findings, in the 20 years leading to 2015 Australia’s population increased by 28 per cent and waste levels grew by 170 per cent.
The environmental group stated that in 2016, Australians consumed more than a billion beverage cartons in 2016 alone, which is roughly over 75,000 tons of cartons.
Yet many consumers continue to put their cartons in waste bins because they don’t realise cartons are recyclable.
More than 80 per cent of people in Australia live in local councils that collect milk and juice cartons for recycling through kerbside collections.
Cartons under one litre are also accepted by the Container Deposit Scheme (CDS), which is currently operating in SA and NT, with NSW’s Return and Earn program to launch on 1 December, and in QLD and WA in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
But currently only about two in five cartons find their way into a recycling bin.
Planet Ark also works closely with Tetra Pak to educate the community about recycling.
In February 2017, Tetra Pak became the first company in the food packaging industry to have its climate reduction targets approved by the Science Based Target (SBT) initiative. The SBT helps companies determine how much they must cut emissions to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.
Tetra Pak pledged that the greenhouse emissions from its own operations will be reduced by 42 per cent by 2030, and 58 per cent by 2040, from a 2015 baseline.
