Milk also has its international day. Do you know how the packaging is sorted and what happens to it afterwards?

It probably won't surprise you that milk also has its own international day. What may surprise you, however, is that this day has been celebrated since 1957. Why is it celebrated and what do we do with our milk containers after we drink it?

Milk, plant milk and dairy products are one of the most important and indispensable components of a complete human diet. That is why the aim of International Milk Day is to highlight their biologically important content, their extraordinary nutritional properties and to inspire people to make milk a part of their daily lives.

Milk itself is most often packaged in beverage cartons, known as tetrapacks. These are great for recycling after the milk has been drunk, but first we need to sort them properly.

In most of Slovakia, this packaging is sorted together with plastics, i.e. in a yellow container or bag. You may have a separate colour for beverage cartons in your town or village - orange. In that case, empty beverage cartons go here. Whether you sort them into yellow or orange, it is important to squeeze them properly before throwing them away. This will save you a lot of space in the waste bin.

And what happens to them afterwards? For example, we, with our partners at the Municipal Materials Circle can make toiletries such as tissues, kitchen towels or toilet paper from beverage cartons. This is how we operate in Trnava and Senec, for example. Thanks to this, we are able to recycle the collected beverage cartons and then return them as hygiene products. In this way, the municipal material circle is being closed.