What to do with cardboard wine cradles

I'm wondering just what is 'in' cardboard these days. I'm talking about plain ole cardboard. As I am a hoarder of cardboard from just about every type of box of items that I order by mail, moving boxes, wine boxes, until the spouse gets around to cutting it up for the dump. I'm not speaking of the other kind of stinking cardboard boxes that have colors painted on them,

Some people do use newspapers and other printed materials as compost. I won't do this to my heavenly compost bin.

A nice tip though and much appreciated. I just threw out a really thick set of the cardboard cradles day-before-yesterday. I thought of cutting them shorter and using them as a divider to stand up tubes of this and that (like large Ben-Gay, skin cream, etc.) in, in the storage room. Spouse was not inclined to cut them down. Then I agreed, remembering how they smell.

Dee Dee

Corrugated boxes are pretty clean and contain paper pulp and starch glue to keep them together. Not something I'd eat, but there are no heavy metals or chemicals added. Some has been recycled so it may not be pure but it has been heated in the process. .

I'm so conscious of odors, and more things than not send me into symptoms that are too numerous to recount. Oh, those paper mills of the northwest! Perhaps it's their odor residue that's in my brain-set :-))

Dee Dee

sounds like you know corrugated. i was in the business for years.

every time we got a whiff of a paper mill my boss always said it smelled like "eggs and bacon".

I've been involved in the packaging business in one form or another for the past 39 years. Buying, selling, making.

Don't accept any breakfast invitations to their house!

nancy

hmmm...i was in the packaging biz for 25 years. who may i ask did you work for?

i think he was referring to the money being made.

I figured he didn't know any bacon or eggs that smelled that bad. Heh. Though eggs can have their moments.

nancy

Why bother to cut them up... our town dump insists they are left whole, flattened and tied into bundles... they are recycled.

They are just wood pulp with a vegetable starch binder, even the printing is veggie dye. Most are glued with a vegetable starch paste but some are stapled... I always remove the staples from empties, they're dangerous. Why not put all that corrogated to good use... I save all corrogated cartons, flatten and use as mulch walkways between rows in my garden... by next spring they have mostly composted, they get tilled in and I start all over.

Thanks so much. I'll not throw boxes away again and DH thinks this is a great idea to put in our garden area between the boxes.

Our town dump wants the big, big boxes flattened. But the small boxes are ok anyway you want to do it; besides the dump station has a window in the dumpster than is small, small, small, so they need cut up to get in.

Dee Dee

That seems like a good idea.

I've heard that they are great to start fires with... better than kindling. I was saving them for a while and just threw them in the recycling bin.

Karen

I still like these better than the styrofoam ones that will be here until the year 5000.