Recycling: Has the world gone mad

[HawkeyeMS]

I've just noticed the recycling information on the back of a box of dog biscuits. It's a cardboard box, a plain and simple, ordinary looking cardboard box. The recycling information says...

Box: Mixed material, not currently recycled.

What's the world coming to when you can't recycle a cardboard box?

 

[Foxholer]

Are you sure they don't simply mean that the materials in the box haven't been recycled, rather than aren't capable of being recycled (as in recyclable)?

So when they start using recycled materials they'll simply delete the 'not currently'.

If they've had complaints about not using recycled cardboard, this may be their way of suggesting that they will in the future.

 

[London mike 61]

Just stick it in the cardboard recycle bin, if they don't want it they will put it in the general waste.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

Are you sure they don't simply mean that the materials in the box haven't been recycled, rather than aren't capable of being recycled (as in recyclable)?

So when they start using recycled materials they'll simply delete the 'not currently'.

If they've had complaints about not using recycled cardboard, this may be their way of suggesting that they will in the future.

Absolutely sure, I looked it up. "Not currently recycled" means that less than 15% of local authorities will recycle it.

It's going in the recycle bin anyway.

 

[CliveW]

Just chuck it on the fire and recycle it as fuel.

 

[Swinger]

I thought you shouldn't recycle paper and card as they are a good carbon sink. Most logging companies should have a good tree replacement program in place so it's win - win unless you like hugging trees.

 

[Foxholer]

Absolutely sure, I looked it up. "Not currently recycled" means that less than 15% of local authorities will recycle it.

It's going in the recycle bin anyway.

That would seem to indicate that there is something on the cardboard, such as a film perhaps, that prevents it from being recycle-able.

Cardboard is the standard item pictured/used where for the 'Green' Recycle label - indicating that the majority of councils have facilities to recycle the packaging/item - is used.

The whole area of recycling is still very vague and inconsistent currently - but improving (I think).

 

[bluewolf]

If the cardboard has a wax or plastic coating then it can't go into the cardboard recycling system. If the plastic coated cardboard finds it's way to a paper mill, then the plastic coagulates in the recycling process and forms something called "stickies" in the mix. These stickies can then be wound into the reel of paper when the jumbo reel is formed. If this reel makes it to a Newspaper plant, then the damage caused when the sticky is unwound can be quite nasty.