Recycled paper gets turned into everything from shipping boxes to home insulation, and you can put it to good use yourself in the garden, compost bin, or craft room. The United States recycles about 46 million tons of paper and paperboard each year, a recovery rate of 68.2%, the highest of any material in municipal waste. Whether you’re wondering what happens to paper after it hits the recycling bin or looking for ways to reuse it at home, here’s what you need to know.
What Recycled Paper Becomes
Most recycled paper ends up as new packaging and paperboard products. Folding cartons, the kind used for cereal boxes, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, can contain 40 to 80% recycled fiber. Industrial paperboard used to make tubes, cores, cans, and drums runs even higher, at 45 to 100% recycled content. The chipboard found in pad backings, book covers, game boards, and puzzles typically contains 75 to 100% recycled material.
Corrugated shipping containers, the brown boxes that show up on your doorstep, use 25 to 50% recycled fiber depending on the strength grade. Beyond packaging, recycled paper fibers get pressed into cellulose-based insulation panels for buildings. These panels are made from urban paper and cardboard waste mixed with water, requiring minimal energy to manufacture compared to fiberglass or foam alternatives.
Paper fibers can be recycled up to 25 times before they become too short and weak for further use. Each cycle shortens the fibers slightly, which is why high-grade office paper gets “downgraded” into lower-quality products over its lifespan. Eventually, fibers that are too degraded for recycling can still go into compost.
Recycling Bin vs. Compost Bin
Not all paper belongs in the same place. The general rule: clean, high-grade paper should always go in the recycling bin because it has the most value as a raw material. Soiled or degraded paper is better off in the compost. Here’s how to sort common items:
- Clean office paper and mail: Always recycle, even envelopes with plastic windows. This is high-grade fiber that produces the best recycled products.
- Clean cardboard: Recycle it. If it’s wet or greasy, compost it instead.
- Pizza boxes: Compost them. The grease and food residue devalues the cardboard and contaminates other recyclables at the mill.
- Paper towels: Always compost. The fibers are already so short they can’t be recycled further.
- Egg cartons: Composting is ideal since the fibers have already been recycled many times and are low-grade. Some curbside programs still accept them, though.
- Soiled or wet paper of any kind: Compost it. If it has a plastic window (like an envelope), cut the plastic out and throw it away before composting the rest.
Paper That Can’t Be Recycled at All
Some paper products look recyclable but will contaminate a batch at the mill. Paper cups and plates, including coffee cups, have a thin plastic or wax lining that makes them non-recyclable. Wax paper, thermal receipts, shiny gift bags, and gift wrapping tissue paper all fall into this category too. Food-contaminated papers like greasy takeout containers cause problems at paper mills because the oils interfere with the fiber bonding process.
If your local program doesn’t accept these items and they’re not suitable for composting (anything with plastic or wax coatings), they go in the trash.
Using Shredded Paper in the Garden
Shredded paper makes a surprisingly effective garden material in two ways: as mulch and as compost filler.
Spread around plants, shredded paper suppresses weeds and helps soil retain moisture, similar to wood mulch. One thing to watch for: if it clumps together, it forms a sheet-like barrier that repels water instead of letting it soak through. Mixing it loosely or layering it thinly prevents this. It does break down more slowly than leaves or traditional mulch, so expect it to stick around longer.
In a compost pile, shredded paper serves as a carbon-rich “brown” ingredient to balance nitrogen-heavy “green” materials like food scraps and grass clippings. Shredding it first speeds up decomposition significantly. Stick to plain white or unbleached paper for composting. Most modern white office paper is bleached with chlorine dioxide, which breaks down quickly and is considered safe. But glossy paper, colored newsprint inserts, and anything with a shiny coating may contain heavy metals in the ink. If you’re composting for a vegetable garden, using only unbleached, non-glossy paper is the safest choice.
DIY Projects With Recycled Paper
If you want to skip the bin entirely, old paper can be turned into new handmade sheets with nothing more than water, a blender, and a simple screen frame. Tear the paper into small pieces, blend it with water into a pulp, then spread the slurry across a screen to dry flat. The resulting sheets have a distinctive textured look that works well for postcards, business cards, product tags, and journal covers.
You can customize the texture and appearance by pressing dried flower petals into the wet pulp before it dries. Thicker batches work for sturdier items like business cards, while thinner pours produce writing-weight paper. Leftover pulp from cutouts can be reformed into smaller items like gift tags, so nothing goes to waste. Papier-mâché is another option: layered strips of recycled paper and paste can be molded into decorative bowls, sculptures, or holiday ornaments.
Preparing Paper for the Recycling Bin
Paper recycling requires less fuss than most people think. You don’t need to remove staples, paper clips, or the plastic windows from envelopes. Mills are equipped to filter these out. The main thing to avoid is contamination from food, liquids, or non-paper materials mixed in. A single greasy pizza box won’t ruin an entire truckload, but widespread contamination raises processing costs and can cause whole batches to be landfilled instead of recycled.
Keep paper dry and reasonably clean. Flatten cardboard boxes to save space. And when in doubt about whether something is recyclable, composting is almost always a safe second option for any plain, uncoated paper product.