For the first time in the world, school milk in Upper Austria is being bottled in 100 per cent sustainable cups made from recycled PET (r-PET). The joint project between Austrian school milk farmers and the three Upper Austrian companies PET-MAN, Greiner Packaging and Starlinger viscotec has now been honoured.
The TRIGOS is Austria's most prestigious award for responsible business and was presented for the 18th time in 2021.
Austria's school milk farmers supply schools and kindergartens directly with their milk products in r-PET cups - the children consume the milk products during their break, after use the cups are collected again and then returned to the school milk farmers for recycling. The collected drinking containers are collected from the farm, washed and shredded.
The shredded material, known as flakes, is cleaned and processed. The extruded film is then thermoformed into new r-PET cups at Greiner Packaging, which can then be refilled by farmers and supplied to schools and nurseries. Compared to reusable glass bottles, this cycle reduces CO2-emissions. Recycling the cups also requires less energy than processing reusable glass, for example, and produces less waste. However, all this is only possible without any problems because the cups are not printed and are made of 100 per cent mono-material.
Source: Greiner Packaging
