Replacing plastic caps with fibrous caps can reduce the amount of plastic used in milk cartons whilst improving recyclability at the same time.
Arla Foods has partnered with Swedish start-up Blue Ocean Closures to create the first fiber caps suitable for use in milk cartons. This cap is made of FSC-certified fiber material and thin coating and is biodegradable and recyclable as paper.
Plastic screw caps make up around 23% of the total plastic used in Arla’s milk cartons and removing it will reduce Arla’s plastic consumption by more than 500 tons per year.
Arla Company has announced that their goal is to eliminate fossil-based plastic in their packaging by 2023, of course, replacing plastic caps with fiber-based caps will make us take a big step towards our goal.
Blue Ocean Closures’s product has a proprietary barrier component that is fully biodegradable. But while cardboard-based milk packaging is considered recyclable, in some areas, there are still practical barriers to recycling materials containing aluminum-based barriers. When asked if the new milk cap includes the same type of barrier, Arla could not disclose the type of material used due to proprietary technology but assured that the cap can be recycled as paper in the current waste handling systems, especially throughout the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany.
As to whether the substance is fully degradable, the answer was yes. Paper fibers are completely degradable in nature. How long it takes? depends on the actual conditions and analysis method. A general rule for paper is that it decomposes in soil in 8-10 weeks.
According to Arla, the cardboard milk carton is now “a near-optimal choice” for food safety and sustainability. In response to the question of what could be further improved, the co-op’s spokesperson suggested that it is to make recycling more practical. Some markets have waste handling systems that are fully ready to sort and recycle cardboard milk cartons, while others are in the final stages of implementation. For example, Denmark has recently introduced a waste sorting category for cardboard beverage cartons.
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