Recycle your Cardboard & Paper!

We all enjoy receiving packages in the mail, but are the cardboard boxes and packing materials properly recycled? Did you know that 96% of Americans have bought something online, and 80% of us do so monthly? Corrugated cardboard shipping boxes make it possible for us to do a lot of our shopping online.

Let's give cardboard boxes a second chance by emptying, flattening, and tossing them in our recycling bins. Recycling cardboard boxes reduces the amount of waste that is dumped in landfills, produces new fiber for the production of new paper products, consumes less energy and raw materials, and creates recycling jobs.

Cardboard makes up the majority of the recycling stream. Paper is everything from office paper, mixed paper, newspapers, magazines, paperbacks, catalogs, and phone books. Boxboard or paperboard is best represented by cereal boxes. This flat stock is used in almost everything you would buy at the store. Not all cardboard and paper are recyclable. If it's coated in a material like wax, plastic, or foil (such as metallic wrapping paper) cannot be recycled. Another example is receipts which is actually a special "thermal paper" which changes color when exposed to heat. 

Here are the 3 things you can do to make recycling cardboard and paper easy.

1) Avoid contamination -  Recycling can be tricky. While a pizza box is recyclable, if it has grease or food stains, it can't be. You can only recycle the clean top, not the oily bottom. Shredded paper is the only thing that should go in a plastic bag for recycling.

2) Flatten Boxes  - This makes cardboard easy to handle and store. It also helps your hauler transport more in each trip. 

3) Remove all Packaging - Any plastic, styrofoam, and packing slips should be removed from your packages. These contaminants make it harder to cleanly recycle. 

The key is not to be perfect at recycling paper and cardboard but to try to recycle a higher percentage. As with all recycling, that little bit extra makes a difference for the future. 

 Recycling Hardcover Books at Local Libraries