Where to get rid of cardboard boxes??

[tr0kee.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone!

We just moved to Somerville and have about a thousand cardboard boxes. The city website says we need to cut them into 2' by 2' squares if we want them to be removed curbside. Is there anywhere we could *bring* them without having to do that? Somesort of drop-off recycling center or something like that?

Thanks!

Comments

[ron_newman]

There are *always* people here who ask for boxes for their upcoming move, though perhaps we'll enter a bit of a lull period now.

[cowhockey.livejournal.com]

IKEA has a card board recycling bin.

[ron_newman]

but we don't have IKEA in Somerville yet.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

I suspect that even Somerville isn't that anal. Tie them up in reasonable size bundles and they should get taken. Look at what your neighbors do.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

Oh, they are. I had a big bunch of boxes a few years ago and even though I cut them up, they still got taken by the trash people instead of recycling.

[alphacygni]

They are. We tried two weeks in a row to get rid of a pile of boxes, and each time, the recycling guys picked them up and put them in the trash can, and then the trash guys picked them out and dropped them on the curb. They were cut down to maybe something more like 3', and tied in bundles. After the second week, when they got all wet after being dumped back on the curb, we stomped them into pieces and put them in a trash bag. Major recycling fail. I'm hoping the soon-to-be-released big bins will help with this issue.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

That's not Somerville being anal, that's the trash people coming first and being extremely annoying. It happened to us multiple times after an annoying bit of work making up the bundles to spec.

We finally started putting out the cut-up boxes in bundles only after we'd seen the trash truck come and go.

I wonder whether the no-sort recycling program due to start later this fall will make it a lot easier to recycle cardboard boxes as long as they fit in the big bins, though.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

This is not always the case. I've watched as the recycling collectors pull my bundled cardboard off the top of the bin, take the bin, and leave the bundle. I've seen it multiple times and always with larger-sized bundles. They don't seem to hold fast to the 2x2 rule, but I'd say 3x3 is too big, from my experience.

The the OP, single stream recycling is supposedly coming sometime this fall, if you can hold out for that.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I believe you that there are times the recycling collectors won't take something that doesn't meet the spec. However, on our street in particular, we had a longstanding pattern where the trash truck would come at 7:01am or something very close to the start of the route, and we watched them take our cardboard while the rest of our recycling sat waiting for pickup. I don't think they were in the business of deciding in advance that it was somehow wrong, and when we started leaving them on the porch till after we'd heard the trash truck, we did better. At this point, we're saving the boxes till single stream starts up though. :)

[ratushebarl.livejournal.com]

Dittoes reasonable bundles. It will be fine.

[squirrelitude]

I believe that the main reason for the restrictions is curbside management. Workers need to be able to quickly chuck the recycling into the truck, so it should be a reasonable size. It also must not blow around if there is wind, hence the twine.

I usually cut up our small amount of corrugated and slide it into the rest of our paper. I think that's allowed...

[enveri.livejournal.com]

They are strict about it being twine as well. I had taped a big bundle together, and as others experienced, they were dumped out for 3 weeks and not taken.

Take them to Uhaul

[eveninparadise.livejournal.com]

The Uhaul of Somerville/Medford off Rte. 16 has a leave a box, take a box policy. (Boxes don't have to be Uhaul brand.)

Go to the storage units area, and there's a place to leave boxes to your right as you go in.