Break Down Cardboard Waste –
About 80% of all things sold are packaged in cardboard, just in the US and the EU. But shockingly, 850 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are discarded each year and end up in landfills all over the US. Additionally, if you measure this material estimate during the Christmas season, you will find that the total amount of cardboard waste produced rises by more than 25% from the average amount. The EPA’s current estimate that paper and cardboard materials make up the majority of municipal solid garbage is even more alarming.
Why is this important? It’s inevitable that, as a business owner or manager, you produce a lot of cardboard waste from office supplies to shipping and logistics to regular Amazon orders. And if you’re not properly disposing of your cardboard, like most people who just throw it in the garbage, you’re missing an opportunity to not only be more ecologically friendly but also save money on your waste bill.
In this blog article, we provide a simple and practical resource that explains the value of “breaking it down,” how doing so properly could improve your company’s bottom line, and the best strategies to use to dispose of cardboard waste more effectively.
Break It Down
It’s more crucial than you might think to break down your cardboard waste, and failing to do so could result in high ongoing waste and recycling costs for your company. This is why:
– Bulky cardboard that has not been adequately broken down takes up more space in trucks used to pick up the material and creates a lot of additional air and space inside containers.
– When you don’t break down your cardboard, you’re not making the best use of the available space, and all that extra space might result in hidden costs as well as growing collection costs.
– When your containers are not well-organized and are full more regularly, a garbage vendor may be able to pick up your recycling more frequently, which raises the cost of your waste bill on a recurring basis.
Optimum Practices
It is best to break down any cardboard waste in order to maximize the space in your container(s) and decrease the number of pickups your business needs on a weekly or monthly basis. To effectively break it down, adhere to these simple steps:
– Take your box and turn it upside down. Run a box cutter along the center bottom seam
– Repeat this under the two flaps on each end of the box, freeing the tape at the edges
– Pull all four flaps straight up, so that all edges, on either end, move freely up and down
– Lightly push and twist in until the box collapses on itself—flattened and ready to be stacked in your container
Get in touch with us for further details.