Why won’t the recycling collector take my pizza boxes?
Every week (Friday is Pizza night at my house) I put the pizza box in with the recycleables, and every week the recycling man takes it out and puts it on top of the trash cans.
Some have offered that the pizza box, while made of cardboard, is not of the corrugated variety and therefore not recycleable. While I agree that some, perhaps most, pizza boxes are not corrugated, the ones my favorite pizza shop uses are, in fact, corrugated.
So what do the recycling Gods have against pizza boxes?
My WAG is that they’re often encrused with cheese, grease, and other tasty but non-recyclable substances. These may gum up the works when the cardboard is processed or may attract vermin at storage facilities. Either way the company probably figures that all pizza boxes are more trouble than they’re worth.
I had considered that. But, this is the same recycling company that does not required that our recycleables be cleaned. We asked specifically when we signed on with them and were told there was no need clean or even sort them - just toss 'em all in the green plastic bin and leave 'em by the curb.
I’d guess that that they’re happy enough to get plastic and glass, which can be cleaned with water and pressure and maybe a bit of soap. But the grease and half-melted cheese soak into the cardboard pizza box in a way that would make it more or less impossible to remove from the cardboard.
Anyway, since the recycling guy clearly isn’t going to take the boxes, I’d just give up and start throwing them away, with maybe a phone call to ask the recycling company about the reason for it if you’re deeply curious.
My local waste company also collects mixed recyclables, and they specifically refuse “food-contaminated paper products.” Perhaps if you made some effort to remove crumbs, cheese, and dried-on sauce, they would let you slide on the grease.
Most pizza boxes are corrugated. A corrugated box has two straight, parallel sheets separated by one curvy, or corrugated sheet (or three straight, two curvy, or four straight, three curvy). Other non-corrugated pizza boxes are solid fiber, or one single thicker sheet. When PCW (Post Consumer Waste) is recycled back into more kraft paper, it goes into what can be described as a big, hot, slow-speed blender, where it is mechanically beaten and broken down. It is then screened to remove debris. Waxes and oils break down to small enough particles that they can pass through most screens, and would end up contaminating the finished product.
FisherQueen is correct. My city’s recycling authority says the same thing: it’s nigh impossible to remove soaked-in grease and stuck-on food products from cardboard.
