Cardboard Recycling
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Clean cardboard can be recycled into cardboard 7-10 times!
And given that it is such an abundant item in our lives today, we want to make it easy to get the most out of this amazing resource.
First and always, REUSING IS BETTER THAN RECYCLING. It takes a lot of energy and water and human action to actually collect, process the boxes into paper pulp, make back into boxes, and redistribute (and I did just simplify the cycle by about a 100%). If you can reuse them, or if you can connect with someone in your community who can use them, this is The Supreme Green.
Second, in order to RECYCLE it:
The cardboard must be clean. (No greasy paper or pizza boxes. More on that below.)
You do not have to remove tape and labels, although it is ideal. (Also more details below.)
You DO need to collapse the boxes to make them flat. Remove ALL fillers and contents of the box.
If they are going into a rolling recycling bin, they need to easily fit into the bin, without forcing it to fit. (That way they will easily come out when being collected and they don’t stay stuck in your bin!)
If you have more than will fit into the recycling bin, you can take it to a drop point in your city.
Why NOT Pizza Boxes?
The Grease.
When paper is recycled, it is processed by working it into a pulp with water and soap. As you know, water and oil don’t mix, so that bit of grease can be enough to ruin an entire vat of paper pulp.
This is why you can leave the tape and labels on the boxes- they practically fall off of the paper when it is worked into a pulp.
It is super easy to remove tape from the top of a vat of paper pulp. It is can be nearly impossible to remove grease from the top of the water.
When in doubt, leave it out.
Why we need to collapse cardboard:
If you look at the recycling bins in this picture, there is a lot of cardboard WHICH IS GOOD, but much of it is spilling over into the road. (Hint: it is garbage when it is sitting on the road like this, outside the bin. This is not going to get recycled. This is now LITTER. Bring on a gust of wind or some rain, and it is everybody’s problem.)
The cardboard takes up a ton of space in the bin (and on the ground)* when it could have fit in the two bins if it was collapsed. Even cardboard fillers can be seen taking up a lot space (as designed), and need to be collapsed.
When cardboard and paper recycling gets wet, it gets GROSS. It sticks to other recyclables, sticks to the inside of trucks and to conveyor belts, it starts to break down, and all of this makes is less likely that it will make it to the paper bundles at the recycling centers. Ultimately, leading to it NOT GETTING RECYCLED.
If you want it to be recycled, you have to start the cycle!
*It is obvious that there are also a lot of other items in the pile overflowing the green bins, like styrofoam, an air filter, plastic bags, and plastic wrap. Some are technically recyclable but they must go to SPECIALIZED RECYCLING.
POLYSTYRENE FOAM (aka styrofoam) Some areas actually do accept certain foams for recycling, but it cannot go in the single stream bins. Why? So many reasons: takes up too much space, breaks down into so many small pieces, there are so many different kinds of styrofoam and not all are even recyclable, it takes a special machine to “recycle” the foam into a hard plastic that may or may not have market to sell it to be remade into something. (There is potential benefit for recycling it even if not to remake things, but I will have to explore that in another article about Polystyrene Foam Recycling.)
This picture was taken in Charlotte, NC. They do have collection points for large pieces of packing styrofoam, but you must take it to those special bins at the Full Service Recycling Centers. (link here)
