Recycling Cardboard: Looks easy, but is it really?

Hello again my recyclers!!

In this world of continuous e-commerce one of the most common materials we encounter around houses and trash bins is cardboard. You don't have to do a lot of effort to see boxes everywhere, and like any other recyclable material it needs to go over a decent number of steps before it can be recycle.

Now, the question is: Do you really know how to recycle cardboard boxes? Do you do all the work required to get the boxes ready for recycling?

Let's get into some "technical" knowledge:

There are two kinds of cardboards: The first is known as corrugated cardboard: Consist on a wavy inner layer of cardboard, making it a kind of three-layer sandwich of cardboard. 

Typical Style from the Amazon boxes

The other type is called paperboard: It is a single layer of gray cardboard that's used to make things like cereal boxes, shoe boxes, and other packages.

Paperboard, this is typical for cereal boxes and phone boxes

Now that you are more knowledgeable, let´s talk about the topic that we are here for:

How to recycle cardboard

In general, cardboard is recyclable. Most places that accepts cardboard will ask you to flattened the boxes, and remove all the label and stickers (Yeah, that sucks when we talk about the Amazon deliveries)

The labels marked on yellow will need to be removed prior to flatten and recycle the box

When is a good idea to NOT recycle cardboard?

Grease and oil in paper recycling, and greasy pizza boxes are two of the worst contaminants. (There are some governmental entities that already took small actions on this matter. Here is the webpage from Seattle Public Utilities). This does not mean that the whole the box is not recyclable: In the case of pizza boxes, you could cut the sections without grease and recycle those, while tossing to the trash the other ones. When in doubt if there is presence of grease, better toss it in the trash. As a good rule: If food -that leaks or causes stains- touched any part of the carboard, that part is not recyclable.

 

Sections that can and can´t be recycled

Moldy cardboard or with paint stains are not recyclable. Despite several web-pages giving advice on how to remove mold, this cannot be completely removed from cardboard (because of the porous surface). Careful! Wear gloves, eye protection and respirators when handling moldy boxes. I am not an expert of mold, so the only advice I can give you is to get an second opinion if you are facing this situation. This reference is a good start. Another good reference comes from North Dakota State University.

Moldy boxes 

For waxed carboards or water resistant cardboards you might have to check with your recycling program because recycle them is not always available! Most paper food containers that appear to be coated in wax are actually coated with polyethylene (Plastic)! Something to think about when you are buying coffee from Starbucks and other coffee shops: Those cups, although sometimes made of recycled cardboard, they are also waxed paper. So, in theory, the lid (which is made of PS#6) is the only "recyclable". Other objects of the same style are milk, juice and frozen containers (For example, ice cream tubs), drink boxes and all the fast food containers (In case you needed more motivation to leave those salty fries out of your diet).

I hope you find this new article interesting :). Knowledge makes you smarter and wiser!!