Why use milk dispensers, cartons are recyclable, right?

There's more and more talk of school cafeterias providing milk from dispensers. Kids fill washable, reusable cups rather than drinking milk from a carton. So no more cartons, but – cartons are recyclable, right? Recycling is just as good as reusing, isn't it? 

Not really and here's why.

Think of the energy used. Check out the slideshow below...

And that's what it takes just to dispose of the cartons. Think back to when the carton was first manufactured. We need to consider all of the resources (trees, oil and more), people power and energy used to run the machines that produce these cartons in the first place.

We use a milk carton only once, just for a few minutes, and then it becomes waste. Wouldn't it be better to drink milk from something you can use over and over again? In long-term sustainability planning, reusable items may well be the way to go, as it vastly reduces waste generated versus disposable, recyclable items.