September 29, 2026
What happens after a carton is collected and recycled?
For many people, that is where the recycling story ends. In reality, it is where a vital part of the value chain begins.
Collection and sorting help materials enter the recycling system. But for recycling to work at scale over the long term, these materials also need somewhere valuable to go. Recyclers need markets for their output. Manufacturers need confidence in the materials they buy. And end products need to deliver performance that customers value.
These market forces are what we describe as "pull" mechanisms. They create demand for recycled materials and help ensure that investments in collection, sorting and recycling are supported by resilient end markets .
"A recycling system is strongest when value is created at every stage of the chain," says Kinga Sieradzon, Vice President, Sustainability Operations at Tetra Pak. "When recovered materials are recognised as valuable resources, it becomes easier to attract investment, encourage innovation and support long-term growth."
The pull that creates value from recovered fibre
Paperboard represents the largest material share of a food and beverage carton and can be transformed into a range of new products after recycling.
The long, strong fibres recovered from food and beverage cartons are valued in a variety of paper applications. What matters most is not a single end product, but whether those fibres can find reliable uses after recycling and remain in circulation.
Lucart provides one example. Through its EcoNatural range, the company transforms recovered carton fibres into tissue, toilet paper, kitchen towels, napkins and other hygiene products. These everyday applications demonstrate how recovered fibres can move back into useful products, helping to create steady demand for materials that might otherwise be lost.
The importance of these end markets extends beyond any individual application. They help improve the economics of recycling by creating a stronger business case for keeping valuable materials in use.
"The opportunity is not simply to recover materials," says Kinga. "It is to ensure they continue creating value after use. That is what helps make recycling systems more resilient over time."
The pull for polyAl applications
The non-fibre materials recovered from food and beverage cartons also have an important role to play.
PolyAl, a combination of polymers and aluminium, can be transformed into durable products used in logistics, transportation and industrial applications. Across different markets, innovators are finding new ways to incorporate these materials into products that require strength, durability and long service life.
In South Africa, modular e-pallets made from recycled polyAl show how these properties can be put to practical use. The pallets can be reused 10 to 15 times more than wooden pallets and have 38% fewer breakages, helping demonstrate how recycled materials can be linked to clear performance benefits. Another example is Unique Timber Plastics, where raw polyAl is processed into pellets and immediately utilized within the same facility to manufacture plastic planks that are widely used in the South African market. The introduction of polyAl as a feedstock prompted the recycler to replace approximately 70% of its previous plastic inputs with polyAl, owing to its greater stability and superior performance characteristics in the manufacturing process.
Since 2021, South Africa’s extended producer responsibility framework has been helping more cartons enter the recycling system. At the same time, applications such as modular e-pallets are turning recycled polyAl recovered from used cartons into a useful industrial material. Together, they show how policy push and market pull can reinforce each other. Another example is Newpal in Italy. The company uses recycled polyAl from food and beverage cartons to manufacture its Neo reusable transport pallets for logistics applications, creating a clear end market for recovered materials.
These pallets are designed to be durable and efficient across logistics systems. They are washable, sanitizable and rust-proof, and feature a Smart Label traceability tag. At the end of their service life, they can also be recycled, helping keep materials in circulation for longer.
Similar innovations are helping expand the range of applications for polyAl and strengthen demand across the recycling value chain.
As technologies continue to evolve, the range of potential uses is expanding, creating new opportunities for recovered materials and helping strengthen pull across the system.
Opening another route through full-carton recycling
Recovered cartons can also be recycled through a different route, where the whole package is kept together.
In full-carton recycling, all material layers, as well as caps and straws, remain together throughout the recycling process. Rather than separating the different components, the entire carton is transformed into durable construction materials.
Where suitable recycling infrastructure and market demand exist, full-carton recycling can give food and beverage cartons another pathway back into productive use. In India and the United States, this route is already being used to turn recovered cartons into roof cover board, wallboard and other building products.
“What is encouraging is the growing range of end-market opportunities available today,” says Kinga. “From paper and hygiene products to logistics solutions and construction materials, each application demonstrates the value that recovered materials can continue to create long after their first use.”
Innovation that strengthens the market demand
Demand for recycled materials is not static. It evolves as technologies improve, regulations develop and companies look for new ways to incorporate recycled materials into their products.
Around the world, companies are investing in technologies, applications and business models that can broaden the uses for recovered materials. These innovations help strengthen the pull side of the recycling value chain by turning recovered materials into inputs for more products and sectors. The result is a cycle in which demand can encourage investment, investment can support recycling capacity, and recycling capacity can help unlock further value from recovered materials.
Connecting push and pull across the value chain
Collection and sorting help materials enter the recycling system. Demand helps keep them moving through it.
Neither can succeed in isolation. Strong end markets depend on a reliable supply of quality materials. At the same time, collection and recycling systems are more effective when there is clear demand for what they produce.
"Push and pull are two sides of the same value chain," says Kinga. "Collection, sorting, recycling capacity and end markets all need to evolve together. When they do, materials can remain in circulation for longer and continue creating value long after their first use."
The strongest recycling systems are not built around a single intervention. They emerge when policy, infrastructure, innovation and market demand reinforce one another, so that recovered materials have both a way into the system and a reason to stay in use, supporting the transition to a more circular economy.
Read: How we’re innovating towards the world’s most sustainable food package
