You take advantage of the convenience of online ordering, but are left with a huge stack of boxes and packing materials. Before tossing boxes in the recycling cart, first consider how you might reuse them instead. Free online marketplaces like Freecycle, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or Nextdoor often allow you to connect with neighbors who are moving or shipping items and need boxes and packing materials.
When your efforts at reuse are exhausted, here is what to do with what remains.
Try these tips after reuse
- Cardboard shipping boxes should be recycled. Remove packaging materials, such as air pillows, Styrofoam blocks, and packing peanuts, and then break down and flatten all boxes before recycling.
- Deflated plastic packing pillows or bubble wrap can be recycled in the same way you would recycle plastic bags and other plastic films. This means that they should not go in your recycling cart. Plastic wraps become “tanglers” in recycling processing systems. Instead, they can be gathered together in a bag and then dropped off for recycling along with your plastic bags at most grocery and hardware stores. Visit Plastic Film Recycling to find drop-off locations near you. Explore this same website to learn more about what other types of plastic bags and films are accepted for recycling.
- Packing peanuts are often made of polystyrene foam (often called “Styrofoam”) and are not accepted for recycling in most communities. Check with your local solid waste authority to see if there is a collection site for polystyrene where you live.
- Receipts you don’t wish to save can only be recycled if they are printed on regular paper. Unfortunately, the use of regular paper is rare. If the paper is coated or shiny, it is thermal paper and not recyclable. A vast majority of credit card and other store receipts are printed on thermal paper, which contains chemicals that reduce the quality of recycled paper. Receipts printed on large stickers and included in some shipped packages are also not generally recyclable. So when it comes to receipts, when in doubt, throw it out!
- Shred any receipts containing credit card numbers or personal information. Want to avoid having to toss or shred receipts? Ask for receipts to be emailed or texted to you instead of printed when this option is available.
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