Do I recycle or compost paper and cardboard?

Let’s take a quick look at how paper and cardboard are recycled, and the effect of contamination on the recycling process.

Your paper and cardboard are collected and taken to a recycling facility. After sorting into different types, they are moved to a paper mill for processing into recycled paper product.

Contaminated paper and cardboard can cause severe problems in sorting and processing. Food residues on takeaway boxes attract rodents and insects. Batches ruined by the oil and grease on pizza boxes are landfilled. Other difficult contaminants include:

• plastic labels and tape on delivery cartons
• soft plastic windows on tissue boxes and envelopes
• staples on receipts

Put clean paper and cardboard in recycling bin

To avoid contaminating recyclable paper and cardboard, separate unusable materials to put in your rubbish bin. Cut off the dirty bottoms of pizza boxes for composting instead of disposing them in landfill. Similarly, compost the parts of takeaway boxes with food residue.

Compost the parts with oil or food residue

Paper and cardboard compost very well with kitchen scraps. They make a great cover for food waste and help to get the right nutritional balance ^[1] when composting with Bioverter.

Remember to divide dirtied cardboard into smaller bits to assist composting. It may help first to fold thin cardboard, then cut or tear along the fold line. With corrugated cardboard like pizza box, fold along the corrugation and rip or cut into strips following the fold line. Another trick is to wet the cardboard to soften it for tearing.

Household (uncoated) waste paper also can be composted, e.g. toilet paper tubes, used paper towels and napkins, egg cartons and shredded documents.

Home composting enables you to stop sending compostable wastes to landfill. By keeping your kerbside recycling bin free of food residue, oil and grease, you're also removing contaminants from disrupting the recycling process.