About Corrugated Cardboard

• Corrugated cardboard is a paper-based material. It is made of a wavy inner layer made of fiber paper, sandwiched between two sheets of thin paperboard. The design allows large amounts of empty air to exist within the cardboard, reducing its weight and making it much more impact-resistant. Corrugated cardboard is used for shipping and packaging of over 85 percent of all products in the United States.
  
  

The Recycling Process

• When corrugated cardboard arrives at the recycling plant, it is shredded into small pieces. These pieces are then saturated with water to turn it into a pulp. The pulp floats to the top of the water, where it is mixed with additional pulp from wood chips. At the same time, any metal or other contaminants sink to the bottom of the water and are removed. The combined pulp is then turned into new paper products.
  
  

Why Recycle?

• Because corrugated cardboard takes up so much volume for its weight, it is important to keep it from filling up landfills. Recycling one ton of cardboard saves nine cubic yards of landfill space. It also allows fewer new trees to be cut down to provide packaging for our products. Recycling cardboard uses less energy than making new cardboard, resulting in less energy and fossil fuels being burned and less pollution entering the atmosphere.
  
  

What Not to Recycle

• Some cardboard products cannot be recycled. Used pizza boxes have grease and other leftover food stuck to them that can contaminate an entire batch of recycled cardboard pulp. Likewise any cardboard with a wax seal for moisture cannot be recycled, nor can cardboard saturated by any types of chemicals. Many plants will not accept any cardboard that has become wet, because the water breaks down the paper fibers and reduces its usefulness. This is why cardboard pulp is mixed with fresh pulp in the recycling process.