Technically they’re “downcyclable”. The materials can be separated and used for other purposes, but they’re not “cycled” back into being another tetrapak.

It’s also a very energy intensive procedure so even if it’s possible to use some of the materials again, it’s by no means as environmentally friendly as products that can be recycled for their purpose. Take for instance glass bottles and aluminium cans, they can both be recycled into glass bottles and aluminium cans.

Some places also reuse glass bottles by cleaning them. This also costs energy, but not as much as grinding it down and heating it to produce new glass.

Aluminium cans are probably the best single use beverage container as of now.

The best one is not to get one in the first place. Reduce, reuse, recycle, reclaim.

Tetrapak is in the “reclaim”.

Carrying a personal reusable water bottle is a good idea, because it reduces the production of singular use containers.

Look into your municipality’s recycling process, see how it’s done, what the inputs are, what the total energy use is, etc, etc.

I’d bet a year’s salary it’s far less effective (if at all) than most people think.

“Recycle” was/is a marketing grift developed by the oil industry in the 70’s. It largely isn’t effective.

As someone else mentioned, aluminum (and steel) are very recyclable, and are already extensively recycled in manufacturing (don’t forget that reusing scrap within a factory is considered recycling).

Everything else largely isn’t, yet. Glass is very recyclable, but the transport costs are exorbitant, so I suspect it’s a negative for things like drink bottles, while the energy costs on most plastic recycling makes it not yet viable, from what I’ve read.

Someday, just not today.

If the 3 R’s, Reduce is the one that truly makes a difference.