Fellow friends, on my last article, we discussed about plastic bag recycling and this week, let's talk about carton package recycling (somewhat an odd subject.)

 

 

Did you know that waste papers and empty milk cartons have to be recycled separately?  I am sure that many people are recycling well.  However, most of people doesn't know this fact of separation between waste papers and milk cartons.  As a matter of fact, I have surveyed 20 people and 15 of them didn't know about this fact.  As you can see, the general awareness of having to recycle used papers and milk cartons separately is not very prevalent, at least in Korea (low awareness and implementation among general citizens are resulting 15% of carton package recycle within ordinary household the rest 85% are just simply discarded without taking and measure to reuse it.).  In the end, we fall into a situation where we have to import materials to produce new ones.  Considering the fact that carton packages are high-quality papers made of 100% natural pulp, there should be no doubt on such a huge waste we're creating.

 

When we first see waste papers and milk cartons, it will look exactly the same, since they both are made of wood.  However, unlike ordinary papers, milk carton is coated with vinyl to make it waterproof.  When they are recycled together, it can't be reused because the time of decomposing fibroid material in them is different.  Then the mixture of carton packages and waste papers is incinerated, which could have been a useful resources.  Because of improper recycle between waste papers and carton packages, companies that produce recycle products such as tissues have to import some some carton packages from other countries to run their company.  This is very critical to our environment and our economy.  By recycling these two items separately, we can save huge amount of money, also hugely reducing environmental pollution.

 

Even though recycling papers and carton packages separately brings us huge benefit, not many people know about it because of low publicity about this fact.  We should help to publicize the importance of proper recycle of carton packages and waste papers.  We could inform people about the impact of recycling waste papers and carton packages by making aposter or such.  We could tell the apartments to furnish a separate box for empty carton packages to separate waste papers and carton packages easily.  However, the most important part is the participation of ourselves.  We should first start the recycling.  Always remember, little recycling can help saving our whole earth.

 

Recycling bins intended for carton package recycling - picture taken from our apartment in Korea