Corrugated Cardboard Boxes
- DO put in curbside recycling
- DO flatten these boxes before recycling
- DO place multiple flattened boxes inside one unflattened box
- DON’T recycle cardboard with greasy spots
About These Items
Many items are shipped in corrugated cardboard boxes. Clean corrugated cardboard is accepted for curbside pickup in the City of Pittsburgh’s recycling program.
These boxes should be flattened for collection at curbside. You can remove any easy-to-remove labels or tape to reduce contamination but it is not necessary. Cut apart any piece longer than five feet. Keep your box from blowing down the street on pick-up day: place your box inside your recycling blue bin or recycling bag (if it fits), or wedge it under your recycling blue bin/bag.
If you have multiple boxes to put out for recycling, place flattened boxes inside a single unflattened cardboard box. If a box has any greasy spots (for example, a used pizza box) , cut out and discard those pieces first as they will contaminate the rest of the recycled cardboard.
Cut the String, Go Boxes in Boxes
The city previously asked residents to tie cardboard boxes together with non-plastic twine but as of Spring 2019 is now suggesting resident use the boxes-inside-a-box method to reduce issues at the recycling processor.
Flatten those pizza boxes!
Greasy, non-empty pizza boxes are particularly problematic for the city. Since it’s hard to tell if unflattened, closed boxes are actually empty and clear of grease (and they usually aren’t), the city may not accept stacks of unflattened pizza boxes during curbside recycling pick-up. Always flatten your boxes, and for pizza boxes, remove the greasy pieces which contaminate the rest of the cardboard recycling. See Pizza Boxes for more.
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