Recycling Boxes: Everyone is Doing the Deed
We now lead a lifestyle that reforms our responsibility to the environment
. We tune in to wellness activities which promotes balance unto our lives as well as to our environment. We, thereby, make choices and execute ideas that save, restore and protect.
The most common and utterly regarded method which anyone can practice is recycling.
From the simple segregation of non-biodegradable materials to reusing old boxes for storage and moving, we are doing our fair share of the advocacy. Not only does it help the environment, but it can also cut a chunk to our domestic expenses. Although it is not a big amount, those who favor reusing old stuff for another function is quite happy with the deed and not its monetary equivalency.
Here are some of the reasons why people use recycled boxes for storage and moving:
1. It cuts down on waste because boxes are used more than once. Thus, it can be recycled.
2. Using recycled boxes saves approximately 17 trees and millions gallons of water (U.S. Department of Energy).
3. Recycled boxes has the same quality and strength of new boxes unless it is physically damaged and irreparable.
4. There is a growing demand of old boxes, which can economically benefit social communities or non-profit organizations.
And here are some recycling statistics* gathered in the United States alone:
1. 251 million tons of trash in the United States
2. 53.4 percentage of all paper products recycled in the United States
3. 32.5 percentage of total waste that is recycled in the United States
4. 100 approximate percentage of increase in total recycling in the United States during the past decade
5. 8,660 number of curbside recycling programs in the United States in 2006
6. 95 percentage of energy saved by recycling an aluminum can, compared with manufacturing a new one
7. 4.6 pounds of trash per person per day in the United States (most in the world)
8. 1.5 pounds of recycled materials per person per day in the United States
Imagine the product figures if you factor the days and the population in the United States... and what more if you sum it up with the rest of the world.
Thankfully, it is not just us that is doing the share. Companies that manufacture paper products like notebooks, news prints, and corrugated cardboard boxes has taken a corporate social and environment responsibility by manufacturing recycled items for sale.
Companies like Discount Box Supply, a boxes Chicago company engaged in manufacturing and recycling corrugated boxes, packaging boxes, shipping supplies and the likes advocates in the recycling concept and selling it.
Particularly, aside from the environmental benefits, buying recycled boxes is a lot cheaper than buying a new box made with real tree pulp.
According to a representative of the company, their products are called RECYCLED CORRUGATED. And he, Jeff Giedt, shed us an information about the composition of their recycled boxes:
"These corrugated boxes have the image of being 'environmentally correct' because they can be recycled into new boxes and other products. That image is to a large extent justified, since the recycled fiber content of corrugated is
generally the highest of any paper productas of 1997 it was 66 percent and still climbing. While corrugated products are often reused and the majority is recycled, some corrugated boxes do end up as waste in landfills.
To produce recycled linerboard and recycled corrugating medium, many paperboard mills use both preconsumer and postconsumer old corrugated containers (OCC). Preconsumer waste is corrugated materials such as off-rolls and trimmings from box plants. Postconsumer waste includes boxes that have been used for shipping and subsequently discarded. In 1997, pulp and paper producers used more than 16 million tons of OCC to make new containers, while another 3.7 million tons of OCC were exported.
Standard corrugated boxes are fairly easy to recycle since they are printed lightly and require little or no deinking. The pulp made from OCC needs little cleaning and does not need to be bleached. Unlike many grades of recycled paper, OCC suffers a minimal loss in fiber strength and other physical properties. However, there is a limit to how many times fibers can be recycled. For example, Asian corrugated boxes, which have been recycled many times due to chronic virgin fiber shortages in those countries, tend to be weaker and less resistant to water than U.S. corrugated boxes. The fiber quality of Asian OCC is so low that many American recycling mills exclude it from their processes."
Indeed, recycling is indispensable. And I do hope that we take part in this engaging and saving endeavor for us, our family and our environment.
Additional Resources:
*"Recycling by the Numbers". The Good, Bad and Ugly of Statistics and Comparisons. http://sustainablog.org/2008/08/22/recycling-by-the-numbers-the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-statistics-and-comparisons/. Retrieved 04-10-2009.
Recycling Boxes: Everyone is Doing the Deed
By: Dorie Ellwell
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