Fact Sheet: Reducing Corrugated Cardboard Waste

Old corrugated cardboard (OCC) is one of the most commonly found materials in commercial and industrial waste streams. It is also one of the easiest materials to reduce at the source, reuse and recycle. OCC collection systems are relatively simple to set up. OCC is readily identifiable, is often available in large pieces and has a ready market. Indeed, reducing OCC waste is often a company's first waste reduction program.

Reducing Cardboard Waste Can Save You Money

Because cardboard is so bulky, its removal from the waste stream can dramatically reduce waste collection, hauling and disposal costs. Eliminating cardboard will enable you to reduce the number of waste dumpsters, the size of the waste dumpsters and/or the number of pickups needed. If you pay a small rental charge with Quay all collection's are FREE this can only save you money.

• Typical Ranges of cardboard for different business types are:

Type of Business	Cardboard Content in Disposed Waste
Retail Sales	30 - 60 %
Wholesale Trades	30 - 60 %
Industrial	15 - 80 %
General Offices	10 - 25 %
Trans./Communication	5 - 20 %
Utilities	5 - 20 %
Public Institution	5 - 20 %

Types of Cardboard Which Can Be Recycled

The term "cardboard" is used by paper and paper recycling businesses to mean the corrugated container board used mostly for packing and storage boxes. The term excludes paper-board, which is commonly used in cereal boxes, shoe boxes and backing for legal pads. Both cardboard and paperboard can be recycled. Paper board, however, has a very limited recycling market at this time.

Contaminants To Avoid

Most cardboard buyers restrict the levels of allowable contamination and will pay substantially less for contaminated loads of cardboard. Contaminants are items which interfere with the remanufacturing process and must be pulled out of the cardboard by the generator, the hauler, the broker or the mill. These items include:

• Polystyrene foam, wood, plastic, metal and other non-soluble materials are significant contaminants and should be avoided to the extent possible.
• Waxed cardboard, used for shipment of some food products, cannot be recycled and must be separated from non-wax cardboard.
• Old newspaper and office paper waste are considered contaminants if present in large quantities.
• Wet cardboard can be recycled, if it is not small volumes of certain types of materials such as plastic packaging tape, carton staples, adhesive labels, glue bindings and craft paper tape.

Recycling Cardboard

Recycling cardboard is commonly the first serious waste reduction program implemented by many businesses. Cardboard recycling may be implemented in the office, the mail room, the inventory room, the shipping/receiving area and kitchens, as well as the manufacturing area.

• Getting Started: It is first necessary to determine how much cardboard is generated and can be recycled. A look at your waste records, your cardboard purchases and composition of waste in your dumpsters should give you a sound starting point.

Condition	Truck Alternatives
Flattened and strapped to pallets	Semi-trailer
Flattened and stacked loose	Flatbed or Box truck Compactor truck Semi-trailer
Placed loose or compacted in dumpster	Compactor truck
Placed loose or compacted in roll-off	Roll-off-on truck
Baled	Flatbed or Box truck Semi-trailer

Making Paper Pulp From Your Collected Recyclable Waste.

The global use of waste paper in the production of paper and board is increasing. It reached about 85 million tonnes in 1990.

A further increase in the utilization of recycled paper is anticipated.

As forests in the UK account for only 10 per cent of the total land area compared with 25 to 80 per cent elsewhere in Europe, waste paper has been the backbone of the UK paper industry for many years. It is seen as an essential resource and at present represents 55% of the fibre used by the UK paper and board industry.

Recycling paper however does not, as many believe, create a perfect cycle allowing paper to be made, used and then made again. For instance there are limits to paper recovery. Paper is lost from the cycle when used for permanent applications like record keeping, destroyed in use or contaminated. Cellulose fibres cannot be recycled indefinitely. Virgin fibres need to be continuously added to the cycle to replace exhausted fibres as this diagram shows,

Utilising waste paper nevertheless makes sound economic and environmental sense, particularly if the only alternative is to send paper to landfill. Recycling, however, should not be seen as a panacea for the environment. It too is an industrial process with environmental implications which, like all industry, waste paper mills have to endeavour to minimise. The recovery of waste paper begins with its collection. It then has to be sorted by hand into some 10 different groups of paper, all suitable for different tasks. It is obviously much more efficient if paper can be separated at source and this in fact is what the public is doing by depositing their newspapers and magazines in special supermarket skips. Office paper recycling schemes are becoming more common and separate bins. Much of the paper sent to the mill will contain contraries and must be processed to remove all unwanted materials (such as pins, staples, and adhesive tape) the paper will have to be cleaned and contaminates disposed of. Depending on the final intended use, inks will be dispersed or removed by de-inking.

De-inking

Before printed paper, such as office waste and newspapers, can be recycled into high quality paper products the ink needs to be removed, otherwise it will be dispersed into the pulp and a dull grey paper will result.

There are two main processes for de-inking waste paper known as washing and flotation.

1. Washing

The waste paper is put into a pulpier with a large quantity of water and broken down into a slurry. Contaminants or 'contraries' such as staples and plastic are removed by wire mesh machines and a mechanical action. Most of the water containing dispersed ink is drained off from the pulp through slots or screens that allow small particles through, but not the pulp. Water can be added to rinse the fibres and drained to remove more of the ink. Adhesive particles known as 'stickies' are removed by a fine screening process.

About 80% of the original fibre is recovered by this process (though it will depend on the type of washing equipment being used) with the remaining 20% of ink, clay, filler, plastics etc. left behind.

De-inking by washing has been used with great success on 'wood free' waste grades to produce pulp for writing papers and tissue; and on old newspapers to produce a stock for newsprint manufacture. It is more effective than the flotation process at removing smaller ink particles.

2. Flotation

Again the waste paper is made into slurry and the contaminants are removed. Then special surfactant chemicals are added which makes a sticky froth on the top of the pulp. Air bubbles are blown through the pulp and these carry the ink to the surface. As the bubbles reach the top foam layer is formed that traps the ink. The foam must be removed before the bubbles break or the ink will go back into the pulp. Because the ink is removed from the flotation machine in a concentrated form, the flotation system does not require a large water treatment plant.

When the flotation method is used to de-ink old newspapers, around 30% used magazines are usually added. The clay present in coated papers can improve de-inking efficiency as the ink attaches itself to the clay particles before floating to the surface. The flotation method is more able, than the washing method, to remove larger ink particles.

Yields from flotation de-inking are quoted as 90 - 95% but filler is not removed to the same extent as in the washing process.

Once the pulp has been de-inked it is ready to be made into paper.

The most common performance measurements of the de-inking process are paper brightness (measured by a brightness meter) and the number of ink specks on a sheet surface (measured by visual inspection using a magnifying lens). However, the mechanical properties of the paper, such as tear strength, also need to be determined.

Paper recycling is increasing, there are approximately 420 de-inking mills world-wide (120 having been completed in the past 4 years).

Newsprint, writing and office papers, and tissue are made from de-inked recycled paper and research is continuing to further improve the de-inking process.