Dispose of cartons correctly: What belongs in waste paper?

Shipping boxes, moving boxes and food packaging often look similar, but do not always consist of the same material. In Germany, clean paper and cardboard packaging is basically part of the waste paper collection. Composite packaging and highly polluted materials are treated differently.

Prepare shipping and furniture boxes

Remove bubble wrap, plastic inserts and loose fillers. Separate larger foreign materials as far as possible. Personal details on shipping labels can be unrecognizable. Fold the cardboard flat: this saves space and facilitates the collection. Large quantities or very bulky cartons can often be deposited at the municipal recyclables yard; check its acceptance rules.

A dry, stable carton can again serve as a shipping or storage box before disposal. Damaged edges, soft soils and cracked adhesives are, on the other hand, reasons why it is no longer used for a sensitive content.

Beverage cartons are composite packaging

In addition to paper, milk and juice cartons usually contain further layers. They are therefore not simply part of the waste paper. The yellow ton or the yellow ton is usually intended for this type of emptyed sales packaging. Regionally, there can be a recyclable barrel. The clues of your municipality or local quitter are decisive.

What about pizza boxes?

Remove food residue. Clean cardboard areas may be separated from the dirty part and fed to the waste paper. Highly greasy areas or areas contaminated with food do not belong in the paper collection. Plastic or aluminium inlays must be considered separately. Here, too, the local sorting instructions help with doubts.

Paper is not always waste paper

Material	Pay attention to what?
Clean corrugated board, paper carrier bags, packing paper	Remove foreign material; usually waste paper collection.
Beverage cartons	Composite packaging; usually yellow ton or yellow ton.
Highly polluted or greasy cardboard	Not included in waste paper; follow local instructions.
Coated gift and specialty papers	Check material structure; do not solely sort according to appearance.
Sanitary paper and wallpaper	No ordinary paper packaging; separate disposal rules.

Why Careful Separation Helps

Paper fibers can be reused in recycling. Impurities and inappropriate composites make this process more difficult. This is precisely why dry collecting, removing loose insoles and good separation are useful. A general statement about how often each carton can be recycled or how quickly it disintegrates in the environment would be unreliable.

The basic German assignments explain the Federal Environment Agency on packaging waste. For the concrete collection on your doorstep, you also use the wasteABC Your disposer. Thus, the carton ends up in the right flow of fabric and occupies as little space as possible in the ton.