Making the Most of Your Extra Cardboard

Getting rid of old cardboard and cheap moving boxes can be as simple as tossing them in the garbage, but wouldn’t you rather do something more environmentally friendly, cost efficient, or even repurpose it for your own use? Rather than tossing it out like any old trash, think of leftover cardboard as a resource.

Too often we discard things as if they are of no use to us any longer, but that’s simply not the case with a lot of materials. In fact, I’d say that we could reuse over half of our waste if we really put our minds to it. The fact of the matter is that people just don’t want to go through the effort of thinking how they can repurpose things, and changing up your lifestyle isn’t always as easily done as it is said.

Recycle it.

At the very least, attempt to recycle your cardboard instead of throwing it directly in the garbage. Many places accept cardboard as a type of paper recycling, so make the effort to take your cardboard somewhere that can reuse it. If anything, recycling your cheap moving boxes may get you into the habit of recycling in general, which could put you on a kick of saving your plastic containers and glass jars, too.

Compost it.

Bet you didn’t know this was an option, did you? The best way to take advantage of composting cardboard is to cut it up into small pieces, soak it, and then put it in with your compost pile. It’ll have a much easier time of breaking down if you size it down and soak it with water. As another option, though, if you don’t use compost piles but you do have a green thumb, cardboard can also be used as mulch. Would you have guessed that such a common material could be reused for both compost and mulch prior to reading this?

Use it to house multiple small potted plants.

You know the small black plastic pots that indoor plants and herbs grow in at the store, right? Sometimes it’s not as appealing to just leave those out in your home to drain on whatever shelf or window sill they’re sitting on. Instead, place multiple plants in a cardboard box that’s been cut off low to the bottom of the box to keep a mess away from wherever the plants are sitting. If you plan to upgrade your plants to nice decorative pots later down the road, that’s no big deal at all. From there, just reuse or recycle the cardboard with the methods listed above!