What to Do With a Cardboard Box?

According to Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection, old corrugated cardboard of the kind found in cardboard boxes is a major contributor to the United States commercial solid waste stream. Back in 1996, the U.S. waste stream included 29 million tons of old corrugated cardboard, or OCC. Recycling cardboard has many benefits, including conservation of energy, reduction of greenhouse gases and conservation of water. There's more than one way to recycle cardboard, and some of them may surprise you.

Traditional Recycling

• Preparing for traditional recycling is simple. Separate your cardboard boxes from your other trash then prepare them by flattening them and removing contaminants. Deliver your prepared cardboard to a paper processor or paper mill for recycling. Contaminants are foreign materials often found inside or attached to cardboard boxes, like polystyrene pellets, packing tape, wood, metal and cardboard coated with wax or plastic. If you have children or like to garden, the processing plant is not your only option.

Build a Cardboard Castle

• Andrew McGrew, a former elementary art teacher and small business owner from Livermore, California, got the idea to create "box rivets," which can be used to connect cardboard boxes to build box structures. According to McGrew, building box structures encourages children to develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills. His website, Mr. McGroovy's Box Rivets (at http://www.mrmcgroovys.com/) sells reusable plastic rivets and plans for building a variety of structures including castles and spaceships. McGrew's website features a gallery of cardboard castles, from the plain to the ornately decorated.

  Every box rivet kit comes with a rivet remover, utility knife and instructions for how to place and remove the rivets. McGrew recommends using a cordless drill to make holes in the cardboard for the rivets. According to McGrew, children enjoy playing in these structures so much that they don't really care if they're painted. Leaving the box structures unpainted also allows you to recycle them when you're finished with them, or to reuse them yet again, to create a compost pile.

Create a Compost Pile

• Because cardboard boxes are biodegradable, they're a perfect medium for creating a compost pile. They will contain the compost pile and eventually become part of it. Start by using two large boxes. Open them at both ends, and tape the bottom flaps open. Your compost pile will stand on these flaps. Stand the box on something small like sticks or paving stones, to keep the flaps an inch off the ground. Put dry waste like dead leaves, shredded cardboard, grass clippings and sawdust in the box. Add a layer of soil and kitchen waste. (Avoid cooked food and meat waste, which can attract animals.) Alternate these dry and wet layers, adding small amounts of water. When the pile gets tall enough, tape the second box to the top of the first, and keep going.

  As the layers decompose and mix, they will begin to heat up. Check the pile in the box. If it still smells rotten, or appears dry, dump the boxes out, remix the materials of the pile, and reload it. Eventually your compost pile will contain an earthy, dark, crumbly fertilizer called humus. As you reuse your boxes for each cycle, they will gradually rot to the point where you can tear them up and use them as part of the dry layers of your next compost pile.