This has been a continuous debate for a while as some people claim to say that grease will contaminate other materials as well. However, another batch of people say that it is pizza grease is not an issue and that these boxes can easily be recycled. The only condition for the box is to be empty and nothing else. In recent years, some box manufacturers and mills came together to test the amount of grease than can be recycled. They also wanted to test if it is okay to recycle greasy pizza boxes.
Pizza boxes are easily recyclable, but 73% of community recycling programs are unclear and think it is not acceptable to recycle these boxes. Hence, which is why they usually throw away these boxes and do not consider them putting in use. Therefore, to settle down the debate, there are new studies that confirm that grease and residual cheese do not matter when it comes to recycling pizza boxes.
Why pizza boxes are easy to recycle?
The majority of the pizza have custom cardboard boxes especially for delivery. Hence, the reason why it is easy to reuse these is because of the material. Cardboard is widely common all over the world and it also has the most leftovers.
However, this used to be a worrisome element but now, numerous manufacturers are coping with it and recycling it. Therefore, there are not many known ways how you can separate the grease from the box but, there are ways how you can recycle them even if it does not get separated.
There are some stages of recycling that the materials have to go through which is why it seems okay for greasy pizza boxes to be recycled. Therefore, there is a recycling stream that allows these boxes to mend with the rest easily so it creates no problems.
They also claim to say that there is no such issue with the paper either after these boxes undergoes recycling. However, because there is still a ton of confusion between these 2 sides, manufacturers are now persuading the pizza industry to follow some methods to reduce the grease.
Reasons why companies hesitate
The major reason why some companies do not recycle their pizza boxes is that they can easily contaminate other things as well. Sometimes, during the recycling process, companies mix things up with other materials as well which is why they fear recycling them. If they are mixed with other products, the end result will also be altered. Hence, this can then cause numerous diseases and other elements too.
There are other ways you can recycle used pizza boxes. However, first, you will need to ensure that you read your local recycling rules so that you don’t waste the product and instead give it. If the upper side of your pizza box is clean then you can easily tear that off and use it as its own. Otherwise, pizza boxes are also compostable so you can easily place them in the compostable bin.
Greasy pizza boxes are bad for recycling. It’s really bad. Let’s look at the process of paper and cardboard recycling to understand why.
What makes recycling difficult?
Paper recycling is a different story. They are then undergoes washing with soapy and sometimes chemical water to remove inks, film, staples, glue, and other materials. The whole batch go into a large container where it undergoes mixing with water to form a slurry.
This is where the greasy pizza box or any other greasy paper product gets stuck. Avoid contaminating clean materials by removing the tops from your pizza boxes. Although pizza may not have been invented here, disposable pizza boxes were. The cardboard box is an integral part of many corporate lunches and college campuses today.
Add up to a lot of trash
The U.S. sells approximately 3 billion pizzas each year. About 2 billion of these pizzas are for delivery inside cardboard boxes. This is a lot of pizza boxes. And even more waste: 674,614,000 lbs. There are many cardboard boxes. These pizza boxes weigh more than 234,000 cars.
Trees should not be thrown away
Forests are an important carbon sink. They store and absorb large amounts of carbon, which helps to prevent climate change. Global carbon emissions are increasing by 10-15% because of deforestation and related land use changes.
Grease is the reason boxes can’t recycle
Can we not recycle all this cardboard waste? Greasy pizza boxes cannot undergo recycling at all. Because the oil makes cardboard fibers less desirable, it is not recyclable. Although clean lids for pizza boxes without grease can be put in the recycling bins, very few people bother to separate their pizza boxes into two streams.
These are not recyclable if the pizza box contains a “pizza saver” or plastic tent. You can compost pizza boxes as long as there are no toxic inks or plastic coatings. Therefore, as a user of pizza boxes, people should make sure the box is free of grease and oil. It will make things easier for the recycling department to do 100% recycling.
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