Should I Burn That Pizza Box?

It's a wood burning appliance, not a garbage disposal. Rick

Not a fan of burning cardboard and paper. Recently thought it would be a great idea to throw a large stack of sensitive documents in the stove, the ash mess it caused was simply not worth it. Two quarters of cedar starters and I've been good to go. My son and I have gotten a kick of watching aluminum cans disintegrate into thin air though.

Yea my wife turned me on to those toilet and paper towel tubes. They burn great as fire starters. I usually use waxed sawdust. Newspaper is poor at best. So my next pizza we will cut up the box and give it a try.

I also use the toilet and paper towel tubes. The wife puts them in my kindling box.
Sometimes I'll stick a pine cone in one, as a starter. Excellent!

As a part of my reason for getting the stove was to be a little more towards carbon-neutral, I sort of take a playful pride in not putting anything 'impure' in my stove.. Not in a self-righteous way, it's just become a wee game I enjoy. The only thing that goes in my stove that isn't wood is my monthly credit card bill... Saves me buying a paper shredder.

...saves me paying the bill too...

The main ingredients in cardboard glue is water and starch.
Pizza boxes are not allowed in the waste stream here due to the pizza oil.

Processed paper supposedly has little nutritional value on the ground compared to leaves but worms seem to find something there that they like . I toss them in the woods rather than the stove or use in the garden as weed block.

Hogwildz said:

It is a wood stove after all, and not a racecar or rocket.

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The metals don't care what the application is. The right combination of metals at different ends of the galvanic scale produce the same result. I worry about things like corrosion at the fasteners making it difficult to take apart when the need arises.

yep, pizza boxes, any cardboard or paper, old books,,, whatever found its way into my kindling box gets burnt to start fires. After fire is going,,only wood (mostly)

billb3 said:

Pizza boxes are not allowed in the waste stream here due to the pizza oil

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Similar for recycling here - the oil contaminates the fibers, so the recycling guys are going to throw it out anyway.

I use cardboard like pop boxes and whatnot in place of paper for getting a fire started. It burns hotter and longer than paper, and stuff like pizza boxes is just going to the landfill otherwise. I wouldn't recommend habitually burning all your cardboard though, for reasons others have already mentioned.

cut box into 1/3erds roll a tight log and burn it........

Knots said:

The metals don't care what the application is. The right combination of metals at different ends of the galvanic scale produce the same result. I worry about things like corrosion at the fasteners making it difficult to take apart when the need arises.

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What metals would you be referring to in a cardboard pizza box? Enlighten me...

Normally, I'm pretty anal about burning odd stuff in my stove. BUt....a cardboard pizza box once a month....yeah...I'll admit, I do it. In fact, I just did it today for the first time this season. I wouldn't make a habit of it, but, it revived some coals nicely in a fire on it's way out. I wouldn't think too much of it doing it occasionally. Key word, occasionally.

Hogwildz said:

What metals would you be referring to in a cardboard pizza box? Enlighten me...

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The dye used in printing is often metal oxide based, I can't say which ones may or may not be present, but I would only burn the box with the bypass open.

It's not about damaging the stove (cat maybe) or metals or oils. It's about the fact that when cardboard burns it sends big chunks of still burning half/burnt ash up that can ignite any creosote/flammables in the chimney. That and the ash tends to clog the cap.

jatoxico said:

It's not about damaging the stove (cat maybe) or metals or oils. It's about the fact that when cardboard burns it sends big chunks of still burning half/burnt ash up that can ignite any creosote/flammables in the chimney. That and the ash tends to clog the cap.

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Its actually about every concerned raised in the thread that is trying to answer the OP's question. The board as i see it is a platform to share personal experiences. My experience and rebuttal to you is that for my stove and chimney; 1. I dont want to risk damage to the cat with possible metals 2. I'm not concerned about the heat released by 1 box in the stove 3. I have a screen on my chimney to prevent fly ash, 4. I have a history of nothing but a thin layer lighty ashy chimney dirt.

My posted opinions and those of others reflect their experience and all are stated to help the OP.

bobdog2o02 said:

Its actually about every concerned raised in the thread that is trying to answer the OP's question. The board as i see it is a platform to share personal experiences. My experience and rebuttal to you is that for my stove and chimney; 1. I dont want to risk damage to the cat with possible metals 2. I'm not concerned about the heat released by 1 box in the stove 3. I have a screen on my chimney to prevent fly ash, 4. I have a history of nothing but a thin layer lighty ashy chimney dirt.

My posted opinions and those of others reflect their experience and all are stated to help the OP.

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Well I wasn't really responding to you and made the point that it might be damaging to a cat. What I'm trying to point out is that burning a cardboard box isn't going to make your stove explode but like running a slammer install you can do it right up till the day when it goes wrong. Sorry you took offense.

No worries, just saying, yours and all other opinions are valid.

Hogwildz said:

What metals would you be referring to in a cardboard pizza box? Enlighten me...

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Some cardboard is made with clay. Some clays have metals.

Boxes I get sometimes have copper plated steel staples.

I've seen carboard packaging with the anti-theft chip in between layers of cardboard.

Some inks contain metal oxides.

The likelihood is low. I like it at zero. There's not that many btu's in the cardboard so the risk-to-reward ratio isn't good.

The manual for my stove says no cardboard. Maybe for different reasons. I dunno. As I get older I tend to follow the manual more.

I have never seen staples in a pizza box.
I don't burn boxes in my insert, pizza or any other.
If a person wants to burn a pizza box here and there in their stove, it ain't going to hurt nothing from a miniscule amount of oxide.

I'd be more conscious of colored newspaper & printed advertisements, than a pizza box.
I burn all that crap outside in my burn pile.
Only thing going in my stove is wood 24/7.
I still highly doubt a pizza box is going to do anything but burn in a stove.
To each their own.

My lovely life partner used to throw all sorts of garbage in the insert. One time he put a dead mouse in there - the stench was horrible. I used to have him repeat after me "it is a wood stove, not an incinerator". He finally stopped. All that stuff now goes in the compost.

If you cut the box up, it's no longer a pizza a box... it's pieces of cardboard. (Should I say "pizza's of cardboard?" Nahh, I won't do that.) So after deconstructing the box, you can still burn the pizza box without literally burning a pizza box. Now if someone accuses you of burning a pizza box in your stove, you can deny it, and make Nixon and Clinton proud.

Put the cardboard pieces in the stove when you start, or reload, a fire. If you are burning enough pizza box material to cause worry about your stove, you are eating too much pizza, and you should be more worried about your body than the stove.

The only way you can burn a pizza box is to take a ruler and measure out perfect 1 in. strips North to South. Cut said strips with only a stanley box cutter. Allow each strip to burn for 2.5 sec. before putting another strip in the stove..... I dont know, who cares its a freakin pizza box. Non-cat burn it, Cat. probably shouldn't, and if you worried about cresote fires clean your chimney.

bobdog2o02 said:

The dye used in printing is often metal oxide based, I can't say which ones may or may not be present, but I would only burn the box with the bypass open.

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The dye

Hogwildz said:

I have never seen staples in a pizza box.
I don't burn boxes in my insert, pizza or any other.

I burn all that crap outside in my burn pile.

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Well I hope you don't plan on being cremated because those massive quantities of metal-based pigments in your lungs are going to destroy the earth. [/sarc]

Have we all been lied to by the Brian Williams and Jon Stewarts of this world so long that no one recognizes perspective of scale any more ?