Have you recently noticed that not all of your recyclables are being picked up by your curbside recycling service? Specifically your cardboard boxes?
Whether you’ve had your overflowing container passed by or the large pile of broken-down cardboard boxes that you expected to have hauled away left behind, you’re not the only one experiencing an inconvenient – and unexpected – change in services.
Luckily, LoadUp is providing a better, more affordable way to get rid of your cardboard boxes and other recyclables by having them picked up from your home. With our cardboard box removal service, you won’t have to use one of your few coveted bulk item pickups to simply haul away items that should be recycled and not dumped in a landfill.
How to Get Rid of Cardboard Boxes
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Impact of COVID-19 on Cardboard Box Pickup
Over the last year, both the waste management and recycling industries have been negatively impacted by the shift in the waste and recycling streams due to COVID-19.
The recycling stream and waste stream has shifted this year from mostly commercial to mostly residential. Due to this shift, waste management and curbside recycling companies are picking up less waste from commercial customers and more from residential customers.
This has created a bit of a crisis for curbside trash and recycling companies. Losing over half of their commercial pickup customers is costing them a ton of money, which they can’t get back by increasing the cost of curbside residential trash and recycling services for fear of losing even more customers.
Since the companies are losing money, many curbside recyclers are refusing to pick up more than what is in the bin, and many waste management companies are requiring their customers to schedule bulk item pickup services just to haul away boxes to the dump.
When you have a limited number of bulk pickups per year, using those on something as simple as recyclable cardboard boxes – which shouldn’t end up in a landfill – could be a costly and environmentally detrimental choice.
Plus, recycling cardboard boxes is crucial to sustaining our natural resources.
🌎 Learn about the impact of everyday items on Mother Earth and how we can do better ❯
How to Get Rid of Excess Cardboard
With a significant influx in residential curbside trash and recycling pickups and a significant decrease in commercial trash and recycling pickups, many curbside waste management and recycling companies have had to change the ways in which they haul away your trash.
Unfortunately, this includes the refusal by many curbside recyclers to pick up any items outside of the bin, as well as limiting what items will be picked up, including your recyclable cardboard boxes.
Hanging on to a bunch of cardboard boxes is a fire hazard, and could easily turn your garage, basement, or other storage areas into a highly-flammable tinder box.
In response to the cardboard box pickup crisis, LoadUp has rolled out a solution with our new cardboard box removal, pickup, and disposal services.
When you have large amounts of cardboard boxes, whether it’s from holiday shopping, quarantine-related Amazon purchases, or you recently moved and are stuck with piles of moving boxes, LoadUp will pick them up for proper eco-friendly disposal. Our services will save you time, money, and the need to use one of your few scheduled bulk item pickups.
📦 For only $3 per box, with a minimum of at least 25 boxes, our locally-based waste and recycling experts will remove your boxes from wherever they are located on your property, and haul them away for eco-friendly disposal. Book a pickup today!
Our new cardboard removal and recycling pickups can be booked as a standalone service, or in addition to our other junk removal and hauling services.
With LoadUp, the more you book, the more you save. So now would be a really good time to get rid of that torn up pool table, broken appliance, outdated or bulky furniture, or even boxes and bags of stuff you acquired while decluttering during quarantine.
Why is Cardboard Box Recycling Important?
Cities that do pick up cardboard boxes have started requiring that cardboard boxes are picked up by the trash truck, not the recycling truck.
When recyclable materials like cardboard are thrown in a landfill, it puts a serious strain on our natural resources – especially during a pandemic when there is an increased need for paper items like toilet paper, shipping boxes, and even PPE.
During the pandemic, with many people shopping from home and getting deliveries from Amazon and other eCommerce retailers, our society has been experiencing what is called the “Amazon effect”.
But what does that mean for the environment?
There are tons of boxes being delivered, increasing the need for new cardboard boxes. With many recycling plants closed for covid, more and more boxes are ending up in landfills, which means that less cardboard is being recycled. Because of the failure to pickup and recycle cardboard boxes, there is an increased need for deforestation, a seriously bad practice that harms our environment and the planet significantly.
Large cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, Portland (Maine), Atlanta, and even small cities in Ohio and the Carolinas have reported a significant increase in residential recycling tonnage, causing curbside recycling programs to not be able to handle the increase.
When cardboard boxes end up in the dump, it’s a huge waste of recyclable materials.
Book Cardboard Box Removal and Disposal Services
When you want the most convenient, affordable and eco-friendly way to dispose of your cardboard boxes, book LoadUp for cardboard box removal today!
We do ask that you break down your boxes prior to our arrival, but if you need help or assistance, we’re here for you! Simply give us a call and we will be able to work something out to ensure your boxes are picked up in a timely manner.
But just to be sure, let’s quickly walk through the proper way to flatten cardboard boxes.
How to Flatten Cardboard Boxes
There are specific rules based on where you live about whether or not the boxes need to be flattened, bundled and how much/many per bundle. And if you’re unaware of these rules or don’t follow them, your cardboard boxes probably won’t be picked up.
Many people are guilty of what is called “wishcycling”, the hope that putting something you think is or should be recyclable in the curbside bin and “wishing” that it will actually be disposed of in an environmentally sound way.
That includes not breaking down your boxes, leaving them full of styrofoam and plastic, and believing that all of the stuff will be sorted and taken care of by the recycling facility.
We hate to debunk the myth, but this simply doesn’t happen. Recyclables that aren’t properly sorted or broken down will end up in a landfill, along with everything else inside of your curbside bin.
It’s pretty standard that most curbside recycling companies require that you break down your cardboard boxes before they will pick them up.
Breaking down your cardboard boxes is fairly easy. The extra effort is totally worth it because most recyclers will toss improperly broken down cardboard boxes in the trash instead of doing the extra work themselves.
All you need to do is remove the tape and any styrofoam or plastic packaging, and the box will flatten out naturally. But feel free to stomp them flat if you’re feeling a little feisty.
With LoadUp, you’re not required to bundle your boxes, which is what most curbside recycling programs require. Once they’re broken down, go ahead and leave them where they are. Our Loaders will pick them up from wherever they are being stored in your home or business, and haul them away for proper eco-friendly disposal.
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