What happens to old cardboard?

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Mar 12, 2015
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I haven’t googled or researched this. When I was younger, places bailed it up and where it went I don’t know.
 
at work, we get what seems to be tons of cardboard. It all goes into the dumpster then to the land fill...no recycling place anywhere close to us
 
Companies like Armstrong World Industries take this type of scrap paper, grind it back to the fibers in a water tanks and spread it out on a Fourdrinier (sp?) machine to make ceiling tiles for residential use.
 
It goes into my office, aka shipping department, next to the Mobil 1 stash.

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Big outfits like Costco and Home Depot will put the cardboard into a cardboard compactor where it gets squished down and bailed with wire.

Recycle companies come by to pick the bailed stacks up and pay the stores some money, but I don't know how much.
 
It can be turned back into pulp to make more cardboard or possibly paper. It's not necessarily suitable for all uses. FedEx calls their packaging "sustainable" but don't claim that it contains recycled materials. Their justification is that adhesives often fail on recycled cardboard, but they try to reduce the amount.

I think it can be composted and turned into mulch.
 
They turn old cardboard into vegan burger patties. In the city, I see this 40-year-old pickup manned by a crew of a driver and a gatherer. They collect all old cardboard from recycling bins and alleyways. The pile of cardboard can be as high as 15 feet.
 
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Either dump it at the recycle place and who knows........
OR burn it
OR Use on spots on the property as a death mulch, leave it for a year weighted down and whammo all weeds and sod below soil ready to dig and enrich for planting.
 
The city picks our cardboard IF we put it in the recycling bin. There's always the option of bringing it to them. What happens to them every other Thursday pickup is anyone's guess.

I been recycling 14 (minimum), 16x10x8 cardboard boxes every month for the past couple of years. These are robust boxes that hold two, 6L bags of fluid and at times, have to endure awful UPS shipping and handling.

I did contact the local food banks to see if they could use a steady supply of boxes but they're too small for their needs.
 
My neighborhood have a recycle pickup every week (cardboard, tin cans, plastics, aluminum cans, etc). In a lot of 3rd world countries recyclables are a commodity. You go to a recycle center and you can sell those by the pound
 
Typically they get recycled into cardboard again, from my understanding you lose 1/6 of the fibers every time you recycle but still worth quite a bit vs just burying them or burning them. If you are too far out into the woods then maybe they aren't worth as much as if you are in the urban area near a port or manufacturing hub.
 
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