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Cardboard Confusion

16/3/2016

1 Comment

 
Originally published  Mar 9/16  The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

Two recent conversations about cardboard made me realize that people need more information about it.

The first conversation reminded me there are two different kinds of cardboard. There is the cereal box kind and the corrugated kind.

Cereal box cardboard is actually box board which goes in the bag with the rest of your recyclables.  Box board is baled up with the other materials that are sorted in Winnipeg.

When we talk about cardboard, we are usually referring to corrugated cardboard. It is the thicker kind with a wavy layer inside two flat layers. Most things from shampoo to car parts come to Flin Flon in corrugated cardboard boxes.

In the recycling business it is referred to as OCC which stands for Old Corrugated Cardboard.

Cardboard is baled up separately and sold. The price is based on a metric ton or MT. Prices change depending on market conditions. It was worth $100.00/ MT or more for a few months in 1999 and again in 2002.

In 2008 and 2009 it was worth nothing or we had to pay to recycle it. We quit recycling cardboard during those years because we could not afford it.

That was the second conversation. Someone didn’t know we had resumed recycling cardboard.

We began to collect it gradually in 2010 because we could sell it. Prices have varied from $25.00 - $75.00/MT. They have been steady at $30.00 for the past two years.

Recently we began shipping it to a company that pays $50.00/MT. 

Cardboard is 48% of the material we process for recycling.   Last year we recycled 15 semi loads.

Cardboard is easily recycled into new boxes.  Recycling it saves resources and landfill space.

It’s worth it. 
1 Comment
James Anderson link
20/4/2018 10:20:29 pm

It's good to know that cardboard can either be the cereal box and corrugated box and that both can be recycled into new boxes. My father used to save cardboard before but I'm not sure how he uses it. I guess it's best that I also mention to him that we can take it to centers that are aimed at recycling things such as cardboard and let them take the necessary actions so that it can be reused and save on resources.

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    Deb Odegaard has been with the Flin Flon Community Recycling program since it began  in 1992.  She  became the Administrator in 2013.
    Deb writes a  column 'The Recycling Bin' in The Reminder, Flin Flon's newspaper. Past columns are posted here along with recycling stats  and anything else on her mind. 

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