Cardboard – used in packaging many, many things from strong boxes to takeaway lids
Two main types that are collected for recycling are corrugated – the type with a wavy, zig zagged piece of card glued between to flat layers of card and paperboard – the type of card used for cereal boxes and takeaway lids.
Cardboard can be recycled 4 or 5 times before the fibres disintegrate and many councils now collect both types for recycling – but some may not take corrugated cardboard in your kerbside collection.
Clean cardboard is essential to avoid contamination of entire loads of recycling – items such as pizza boxes should not be placed with your cardboard recycling collection as the contain food waste.
You could also add some shredded cardboard to your compost heap.
- Paper and cardboard are used to pack 25% of all goods
- The UK produces over 8 million tons of cardboard for packaging every year
- Globally around 70% of all manufactured corrugated cardboard is recycled and turned into new cardboard or paperboard
First, the cardboard collected from your home or office is delivered to a local depot, it is then sorted, graded, baled up and delivered to a processing plant.
The plant then adds water to turn it into a pulp, much like making paper mache.
The cardboard is then screened, cleaned and de-inked until it is suitable for making it into new cardboard products.