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Corrugated Cardboard
The average household produces 11.63 kilograms of Corrugated Cardboard per year. Corrugated Cardboard consists of 3.22% of the total waste stream and locally 96.22% of all Corrugated Cardboard produced is recovered.
Corrugated cardboard, also called containerboard, is used for the packing, storage and transport of goods. The name containerboard is "a collective term to describe linerboard (the outside and inside piles of corrugated containers) and corrugated medium (the flutting or middle layer). (Paper and Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council or PPEC.) Cardboard is a hardy and bulky material that acts as a protective instrument against rigors of shipping and storage.
What is Acceptable? All corrugated cardboard boxes are acceptable for collection, provided they are not contaminated with paint, oil, grease and/or food products. We also cannot accept waxed cardboard.
How to Prepare Material: Cardboard must be clean, and free of contamination such as paint, grease, and oil. Must be in bundles 30”x30”x8”. Place this material inside another cardboard box beside your blue box for collection.
What Happens after the Material Leaves your Blue Box? Once the driver collects the cardboard from your blue box, the material is sorted into a separate compartment of the truck with other paper fibres and brought back to the plant in Huron Park, Ontario and dumped onto the tipping floor. From the tipping floor the material is moved along a conveyor belt to the fibre sortation line.
Typically, the loads of paper contain different "grades" of paper that need to be separated in order to be sold on the market. While the markets often dictate which grades of paper will be separated, the Association separates the paper fibres into two main categories; newspaper mix, and cardboard and boxboard mix. The cardboard and boxboard mix contains cardboard, boxboard, coloured office paper, junk mail and paper egg cartons.
What Happens after the Material Leaves Bluewater? Recycling of corrugated cardboard involves two activities: the separation of contaminants from containerboard and the chemical treatment of the fibres to achieve a desired grade of paper. Separation of contaminants from the corrugated cardboard is crucial to the recycling process, to keep machinery working properly and to achieve good quality paper. A typical bale of corrugated cardboard goes through the following process: The bale of boxes is dumped into the pulper where it is wetted down and dissolved into a fibre "slush".
The "slush" is then pumped through perforated plates in the bottom of the pulper to high consistency centrifugal cleaners to remove staples, broken glass and rocks. Heavy contaminants are removed via a continuous junker. Next come a pair of fiberizers where unbroken fibre bundles are broken down, plastics are removed and dewatered on two screens.
The stock then passes through pressure screens where most of the waxes, hot melt adhesives and fine plastic particles are removed, then the material moves into three stages of low consistency cleaning to remove grit, glass etc. After the cleaning, the stock is thickened and then passes through two wire presses for further thickening. Steam is then added and the stock is macerated in a dispersion system. At this stage any remaining waxes and hot melts are broken down and dispersed through the stock. The next stage involves redilution and passing through refiners where the fibres are fibrilated to build in strength.
The stock is then stored in the machine chests before further dilution, screening and use on the forming section on the machine. At the wet end of the machine the stock is pumped onto the forming units, where enough water is removed to form a thin sheet, 5 layers thick. More water is removed at the press section with the form drying being in the stream heated drying section. Control of stock flows to the formers, weight and moisture content is controlled by a process computer" (RCO Web Page).
For more information, click here for another fact sheet.
Questions and Answers?
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