If it goes in the freezer, don't put it in the recycling bin

(Second question is on recycling shredded paper)

Dear Marti,

Why aren't frozen food boxes recyclable? They look like they're exactly the same as cereal boxes and should therefore be recyclable with "Paperboard." What about ice cream boxes? Couldn't they be recycled with paperboard or with milk cartons?

- Wendy

Dear Wendy,

Frozen food boxes may look the same as cereal boxes, they may smell the same, they may even taste the same (I wouldn't know), but there is one key difference: the fiber in frozen food containers has been sprayed with a plastic polymer that works as an oxygen barrier to keep food from spoiling. That can be good for your frozen veggie-link, all soy sausages, but it's a bad thing for recycling. Paperboard is recycled by mixing it with water in a giant blender to create a pulp. But fiber sprayed with a plastic polymer won't pulp up, and instead it becomes a contaminant that needs to be fished out and thrown away.   Ice cream cartons are also treated with a special polymer spray that renders them non-recyclable. So the recycling rule on this one is simple: if the box goes in your freezer, it doesn't go in your recycling bin.

Dear Marti

How does one recycle shredded paper?

- Bill

Hi, Bill

It's fun to shred. Making confetti out of everything from confidential documents to irritating memos from the boss can be a great way to unwind. I've had shred-happy folks ask if their shredding habit might actually assist in the recycling process. That would seem to make sense, but unfortunately, the opposite is true. "Shred," as we call it, is not popular for those of us in the recycling biz for several reasons.

First, the environmental reason (of course the primary concern): when you shred paper, what you're actually doing is cutting the lengths of the individual paper fibers, thus cutting the future recycling potential of that fiber. The length of a paper fiber determines its value since a longer fiber can be used to make a higher-grade paper and can be recycled more times.

Then there's the operational reason. At the new recycling facility, mixed paper from households and businesses goes over a great new automated screen that makes the paper product cleaner than ever by shaking out non-fiber contaminants like bits of glass, etc. The only problem is that the shred gets grabbed by the fingers on the screens and gets pulled into the reject bin, and off to the landfill.

Finally, there's the market reason. The paper mills that buy recycled paper must do a quality sort on the material before they put it into their multi-million dollar machines, and it's just plain impossible to do a good quality sort of shredded paper.   Many contaminants can hide in the shred, primarily plastic strips from a document cover that were accidentally shredded along with the paper. For all these reasons, paper markets don't like to buy shred and don't like to see it in with the higher-grade junk mail and office paper.

If you must shred paper, please put the setting on the thickest width so that your confidential information is illegible, but there is more intact fiber. If you do have shredded paper materials, please take them to the drop-off center and recycle them with paperboard (cereal boxes, shoe boxes, etc.). Paperboard is a much lower-grade category that is more appropriate for shred, and we don't run it over the screens at the recycling facility.   It just gets bailed directly from the bin and then we pay to have it recycled.

For more information on how to destroy the confidential data but not the fiber in your business recyclables, give us a call at Eco-Cycle at 303-444-6634.

Keep those questions coming, recyclers!

Mail your eco-questions to marti@ecocycle.org.