Cardboard: Burn or Recycle - what's better eco-wise?

[pmancoll]

Where I live, they pick up recycling weekly when they do the trash. It's all in one "mixed stream" and cardboard is one of the materials to be left for recycling.

Sometimes, especially when one or more big cardboard boxes are sitting in my porch, waiting up to a week to be recycled, I wonder if it would be better to burn them. It seems like I'm giving up a bunch of BTU's by sending away the cardboard. On the other hand, it's less work to recycle them than it is to cut them up and burn them

I've got a non-Cat fireplace insert, so there's no stove catalyst to worry about. However, it's in the basement on an exterior wall, so it's not the most efficient setup for getting heat. There are some warnings that cardboard could causing a stove to overfire - but I'd putting the cardboard in in pieces: not soaking it with gasoline, stuffing the stove with it, lighting it, and walking away, and taking Michael Jackson drugs to sleep while it burns.

I did search a bunch on google and on this site and found some other answers, but not to this specific question:
-- There are some Yahoo answers on burning in the open vs trashing Cardboard (mixed opinions)
-- Lots of admonitions to not burn other things in stoves, like pressure treated wood, or colored waxy paper.
-- Caution is urged when dealing with a catalytic stove
-- Hearth.com's own list, https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/wiki/Things_you_should_not_burn,
seems way overly cautious (though I'm sure it's technically correct). It says don't burn anything but cordwood, including "firewood that has been sitting out to dry for too long". Maybe it can happen out west, but "too dry firewood" sounds like an imaginary concept to someone in the humid East coast area.
-- several people on these boards have burnt cardboard with no problems.

 

[bluefrier]

Do yourself a favor and recycle the cardboard. Not much btu's in my opinion, it produces too
much ashes and you risk clogging the cap with fly ash.

 

[Big Al]

Agreed. A little cardboard to kindle a fire is ok but...........

I think there was a thread recently about this issue and Brother Bart showed a picture of a 6' flue with flames shooting out. He said it was a cardboard fire in an old stove outside I believe. REALLY scary.

 

[Thistle]

In my city they have had curbside pickup of recyclables for about 10 yrs now.Used to have 15 gallon rectangular tubs you filled up with mixed paper,steel/aluminum cans,clear glass only,certain plastics & newspapers & carried out to the curb every other week.Any corrugated cardboard was to be flattened & placed underneath.That made it a real hassle on snowy,rainy or windy days,papers etc would blow around everywhere.In 2008 they switched to 96 gallon lidded wheelie bins,picked up with their automatic trucks.Soooo much nicer,everything is placed together in the bin,it stays dry & much easier to pull that cart up the long steep driveway than carry that awkward bin,I had 2 of them - they let you keep them if you wanted.I use them for kindling & small stuff,perfect use.

I'll sometimes use a small piece or two like from a pizza box for kindling,never burn any large pieces though - its like a blast furnace in seconds.

 

[madison]

18 & 20 yrs ago, i ignited 2 separate chimney fires burning cardboard in a fireplace. -- I was a slow learner, and too lazy to carry the cardboard out for pickup.

I am now overly cautious and start all fires in the stove without any paper. Super cedars only.

 

[woodgeek]

neither--send it to a landfill to sequester the biomass carbon.

 

[pen]

The last 3 folks that I know personally who had a chimney fire all had one while they were burning up cardboard. It burns hot and fast and if there is something in the chimney pipe near the stove that is ready to burn, it will find it.

I vote for putting it in the recycling bin.

pen

 

[pmancoll]

Hmm, no partisans for Cardboard burning. Guess I have to agree, the cardboard burns so fast it doesn't seem to provide much lasting heat, and it is a pain with the extra ash.

Sounds like all I need is a large covered recycling bin so I wouldn't have to keep cardboard inside.

Madison: I started using super cedars instead of paper. too -- much less trouble and ashes. And I use a propane weed torch to get a draft going on an empty, cold stove. (what else am I gonna use it for in the winter?)

 

[Jutt77]

Compost it.

 

[phatfarmerbob]

use it under ur garden mulch it really keeps weeds down

 

[Jimbob]

The cardboard is ground up finely, and turned into blow-in cellulose insulation.
Doing this doesn't take a lot of energy, and isn't too bad on the environment.
So I would recycle it.

 

[nate379]

I throw it in the burn barrel, but where I live recycling costs something like $15 a month. I don't have trash pickup even, so no way I'm paying to recycle.

 

[firefighterjake]

Best bet . . . recycle.

I wouldn't bother burning it . . . not worth burning it for the heat . . . and it can only lead to problems . . . use some at the start up -- no problem.

Personally I think arsonists are rather foolish . . . they all tend to use gasoline to get the fires going . . . when in fact if they used a few cardboard boxes they could really avoid detection by the accelerant sniffing dogs and lab tests . . . in truth . . . in the Spring I use a few cardboard boxes to get the pile of green brush to catch on fire . . . works really well to burn the brush . . . would work "too well" in a woodstove to make me comfortable.

 

[gyrfalcon]

use it under ur garden mulch it really keeps weeds down

+1

It'll disintegrate in a year or two, adds to the organic matter in the soil, and you can plant right through the remains.

 

[Jimbob]

I throw it in the burn barrel, but where I live recycling costs something like $15 a month. I don't have trash pickup even, so no way I'm paying to recycle.

You guys have to PAY to recycle?
If they tried that around here, nobody would bother..... :bug:

 

[gyrfalcon]

I throw it in the burn barrel, but where I live recycling costs something like $15 a month. I don't have trash pickup even, so no way I'm paying to recycle.

You guys have to PAY to recycle?
If they tried that around here, nobody would bother..... :bug:

It's insance. Large parts of the U.S. are still idiotic in dealing with recyclables. Here in VT, they've got it right-- you pay per bag to throw trash, but (unsorted) recycling is free. You better believe we recycle and compost like maniacs. Only a handful of our "cities" (if you can call municipalities under 30,000 cities) have curbside pickup. Rural VT, you have to take your stuff to the town transfer station on Saturday mornings, or else hire a wildly expensive private service to collect it.

 

[atvdave]

Cardboard has a lot of glue in it, along with a few other chemicals that you don't want going up your chimney.

 

[btuser]

I don't use it en masse, but a few strips for kindling is a great thing. Maybe a square foot per start-up. I wouldn't try to burn it for heat, its nowhere near dense enough. My grandfather used to roll up newspapers, but we don't even get the newspaper anymore. I figure the purchase of a man-made kindling product would add to the negative-energy of the equation.

 

[firefighterjake]

I throw it in the burn barrel, but where I live recycling costs something like $15 a month. I don't have trash pickup even, so no way I'm paying to recycle.

You guys have to PAY to recycle?
If they tried that around here, nobody would bother..... :bug:

It's insance. Large parts of the U.S. are still idiotic in dealing with recyclables. Here in VT, they've got it right-- you pay per bag to throw trash, but (unsorted) recycling is free. You better believe we recycle and compost like maniacs. Only a handful of our "cities" (if you can call municipalities under 30,000 cities) have curbside pickup. Rural VT, you have to take your stuff to the town transfer station on Saturday mornings, or else hire a wildly expensive private service to collect it.

Same here . . . in my town we pay $1 per bag of trash to help keep down on the tipping fees . . . it makes sense to me . . . taxes pay the majority of the costs, but those who generate more trash end up paying more to help offset the tipping fees. Recycling is a free pick up . . . helps encourage recycling. And of course, VT is like Maine . . . it's nice to have the 5 cent deposit on cans and bottles . . . it's a good incentive to not toss your empties out the car . . . and in the Spring there are always folks walking the sides of the road to pick up the cans and bottles for the money.