Pack more weight when recycling your paper

Nearly everyone in Calderdale has access to a kerbside recycling service, particularly glass bottles and paper,
so there´s no excuse not to put out these sorts of items when the recycling collection day comes around each fortnight. But do you know that you can put so much more than old newspapers in the paper recycling box or sack?

 

For instance, old cereal boxes and any card of that thickness can be flattened out and included - and if everyone of us in Calderdale makes a point of doing this, we´ll soon be recycling tonnes more across our borough. So, box clever and find out exactly what can and cannot be included in the paper recycling box or sack by looking at the tables below. And, next collection, make sure it´s not just newspapers you recycle.

Did you know?

• The earliest known paper was made from papyrus by the Egyptians in 2,200 BC. More than 2000 years later the Chinese developed a different method, making paper from rags, hemp and the bark of mulberry trees. This method spread through the Middle East, and then finally to Europe in the 12th Century.
  For many centuries paper continued to be made by hand from rags and straw, but world demand was growing and ground wood chips soon became the main source of fibre. With the introduction of mechanised paper making machines in the 18th Century paper finally became a cheap and readily available material.



• Paper is made from a fibre called cellulose that comes from trees. This might come from either short-fibred hardwoods such as eucalyptus, or long-fibred softwoods like pine trees. Sometimes paper is made from cotton fibres.



• Paper that does not get recycled goes to landfill where it rots down into methane. Methane is a harmful greenhouse gas, for example a single mliecule of methane has 21 times the 100 year Global Warming Potential of a single mliecule of carbon dioxide



• Recycling one tonne of paper saves around 6 average sized trees



• There are 40,000 pieces of A4 paper in one tonne



• Did you know that 17 trees can absorb the carbon dioxide emitted from your car each year, locking up the carbon in the wood and releasing the oxygen back into our atmosphere.

 

Useful Links:

Waste Online - paper recycling information sheet

Friends of the earth - paper recycling: Exposing the myths

Energy Information Administration - Recycling paper and glass

Recycle Zone - How to make recycled paper

Recycle More - Why recycle paper?