What is cardboard recycled for
Sometimes boxes flood our house and we don’t know what to do with them…well if this is your problem, don’t miss this post full of possibilities to recycle your cardboard boxes in fantastic crafts such as costumes, games, organizers, decoration… Keep reading and recreate a world of illusion with just a cardboard box!
If you are a pizza lover like me, there will be times when pizza boxes will flood your kitchen. Well, if you don’t want to live among towers, recycle them! You would never have thought you could decorate with them and look so good.
When it’s time for costume parties, parents fall into chaos. Where can I find costumes and how much will it cost? Well, don’t despair. Grab a cardboard box you have lying around and create this simple costume. Besides, the little monster inside it can help you decorate it as you like.
How to recycle cardboard at home
Cardboard is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, making it a good material for packaging and shipping products. But what is cardboard made of? Cardboard is a material made up of several layers of paper overlapping, based on virgin fiber or recycled paper, usually composed of two or more layers to improve quality. In the case of corrugated board, they will have corrugated interlayers.
Many manufacturers are environmentally conscious and look for renewable resources to produce the required material. In many countries, it is mandatory to make paperboard from fully or partially recycled materials.
Where cardboard is recycled
To enjoy the benefits of recycling – energy savings, less exploitation of natural resources, less pollution, etc. – it is important to separate waste correctly. We explain the types of recycling containers and what to put (and what not to put) in each one.
Recycling is the process through which waste is converted into new products or material resources with which to manufacture other products. Thus, waste undergoes an eco-environmental transformation process that allows it to be reused in another manufacturing process. Thus, recycling helps to reduce the consumption of raw materials and to eliminate waste. That said, there are different types of recycling containers because separating waste in the recycling process is much more costly.
In order to carry out proper recycling, it is necessary to know what should be deposited in each of the containers. Each color represents a type of material and it is essential not to make a mistake when depositing the waste so that it can be properly processed. Below, we explain the different types of recycling containers and what you should put in each one of them.
Recycling large cardboard boxes
During the paper manufacturing process, large quantities of cellulose are shredded and subjected to different processes until all the varieties that we find on the market are obtained. Normally the treatment of cellulose includes the use of chemical substances. The most common is chlorine, which allows the paper to be bleached. Cardboard is made by pressing thicker layers of cellulose.
Since their raw material is the same, cardboard and paper are recycled together. As you know, you must deposit them in the blue containers. The waste paper and cardboard are then collected and taken to the recycling plant. But what happens there, and what processes does the cardboard undergo so that we can reuse it?
When the cardboard arrives at the plant, the first step is to separate the waste by type and, above all, by thickness. Once the cardboard is sorted, it is compacted into blocks or bales to facilitate its storage.
This centrifuging/shredding process is carried out inside a machine called a pulper. The objective is to obtain a kind of “paste” which is then heated and kneaded in an industrial mixer. In this process, the cardboard passes through a shredder and different filters where it loses the metal, ink or plastic adhered to it.