At ELSA, milk cartons
get recycled!

To further reduce our waste volumes and recycle more, our UP (milk production) sector has improved its waste sorting processes. What does this mean concretely? Collectors for various waste types (cardboard, milk cartons or plastic) have been put in place at production sites and a dumpsters dedicated to sorting milk cartons has been installed at our company waste depot.

Taking up the recycling challenge

Recycling milk cartons has a particular challenge in that some packaging must unfortunately be thrown out, for example during calibration at the beginning of production. While this waste represents a very small percentage of the whole production – only about 1% – it nonetheless comes to a volume of approximately 40 tonnes annually. This packaging material was previously incinerated, but we now recycle it entirely!

From milk carton to paper towel

Milk carton waste material in the dedicated dumpster is pressed to reduce overall volume and then collected by our partner, SRS (Swiss Recycling System). They take the waste to a specialized recycling machine, which separates out the different component materials. These are then sent to various service providers who recycle them into other products. For example, the cellulose fiber in the cartons is reused in a variety of household articles such as paper towels.

We send a big thank you to our employees in the UP sector and at the waste depot for their role in contributing to our sustainability strategy.