You can’t recycle pizza boxes — unless you live in this NJ county

🍕 Pizza boxes can now be recycled in Burlington County

🍕 Boxes must be free of cheese, crust, and other food residue

🍕 The new recycling initiative will benefit both the environment and taxpayers

Burlington County has added something else to its list of recyclable items: pizza boxes.

How to properly recycle pizza boxes

One of the reasons why Burlington County is not the first county in the state to recycle pizza boxes is because it wanted to make sure that paper mills could recycle pizza boxes that had some level of grease, said Ann Moore, Burlington County Recycling Coordinator.

What she found is that these paper mills and cardboard manufacturing companies can accept materials with small amounts of grease, which can now be screened out during the pulping process so there’s little to no impact on quality.

Therefore, to properly recycle pizza boxes, Moore said the boxes must remain clean of all food and most grease. They can have small amounts of grease spots, but not a lot of them. Residents must remove any food, wax paper or lining, and the little plastic inserts, before placing them in their blue curbside recycling container. Boxes must also be free of cheese, crust, or other food residue.

“If the lid is clean, they can tear off and recycle the lid if they choose, and then just put the really greasy part in their garbage,” Moore added.

What is the benefit of recycling pizza boxes?

This new recycling initiative would benefit both the environment and taxpayers. Burlington County operates its own landfill. It is estimated that by 2040, it will be filled to capacity. So, recycling pizza boxes will help extend the life of the landfill, Moore said.

The initiative will also benefit the taxpayers. Last year, 84 million pounds of recyclables were collected in Burlington County, saving local towns more than $3.7 million in landfill tipping fees.

“Aside from the environment, this type of recycling gets re-credited back in savings to the municipalities,” said Burlington County Commissioner Deputy Director Tom Pullion.

He added that for decades, the county had been forced to toss millions of pounds of cardboard into the landfill annually. Now, with this new pizza box recycling program, space will be saved in the landfill and taxpayers will save money by helping to keep their municipal solid waste fees low.

 Burlington County is a leader in recycling

The county was the first in the state to create a regional recycling program and it continues to be one of the only counties to collect recycling from all of its towns without charging a fee to either towns or property owners for the service.

“We collect from all 40 towns in the county and we do not charge the towns or the residents a fee for picking it up. That is also a secondary benefit. Not only are the towns not being charged for us to get rid of it, but it’s not charging the residents as well,” Pullion said.

The county’s recycling program began in 1982, so it is the oldest regional program in the state. It is the only county program, and in addition to collecting from the towns and the schools, it is also responsible for processing the recyclables and marketing them, Moore said.

“It is a multi-tiered service that is offered and it also makes sure that we can educate our residents so that our material is among the cleanest of any program. We have inspectors that come in from mills and look at our paper, cardboard, bottles, and cans and say ‘Your stuff is beautiful.’ It is because our residents are educated and our residents care,” Moore explained.

Pullion agreed. He said recycling has become second nature to Burlington County residents.

“We get such a positive response because we’re able to point to the towns and to the residents of the immense amount of savings that they are seeing from doing exactly just that,” he said.

Pullion added that he’s fielded a ton of calls from people who have asked what else can they do to help the environment and what else they can recycle.

“There’s an estimated three billion pizza boxes used per year. That equates to about 600,000 tons that could be recycled. In Burlington County, we believe that we can capture between one and two million pounds of pizza boxes per year that can be recycled into new boxes,” Pullion said.

 What are some other new recyclable items?

Mattresses are also being accepted as recyclable items in Burlington County. Moore said there is a convenience center for residents at the county landfill complex. Clean mattresses and box springs are accepted there, with a small applicable fee involved. This program is only two months old and in its pilot stage. They hope to receive more mattresses as the program catches on, with hopes of diverting them from being thrown into a landfill.

The county is also accepting holiday lights all year round, whether it’s Christmas, Halloween, or other lights. Instead of throwing them in the garbage, they are being accepted at the convenience center., too.

For more information about recycling in Burlington County, visit the website.

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