Recycle Your Whole Pizza Box - Even the Greasy Parts
If you have City of Madison recycling at your home, you can now put the entire cardboard pizza box in the green recycling cart.
Even if there are grease stains.
For years, the recycling guidance for Madison residents was to rip off cardboard lids of pizza boxes to recycle just the clean parts, and then trash the grease-stained parts. Times have changed.
Now we can recycle the entire pizza box when you follow the rules.
How to Recycle Your Pizza Boxes
After you’ve had your slices from one of our many fine local pizzerias, follow these steps:
- Remove any leftover food, like pieces of crusts or slices of pizza. Remove dipping sauce cups and other things that are not cardboard, like pizza savers.
- Flatten your box, like you should do with all cardboard boxes.
- Put it into the green recycling cart.
Where to Get More Information About What Goes into Your Recycling Cart
The Streets Division has a new online Recyclopedia tool for searching what you can put into the recycling cart.
You can find that here on the revamped Streets Division website.
Our recycling website has other information about recycling guidelines and tips, too, that will help you recycle better.
What happens to my recycling after it’s picked up?
After the City of Madison empties your recycling cart, your recyclables are hauled to the Pellitteri Waste System material recovery facility on the east side of Madison. Your recycling is then sorted into paper, plastic containers, metal, and glass. The good recyclables are then taken to manufacturers to be made into new items.
You can watch a video that shows how your recyclables are sorted at the Pellitteri recovery facility.
What happens to the cardboard after it’s recycled?
It goes to paper mills in the Midwest to be used again as to make new paper products – including new corrugated cardboard boxes.
What changed in the recycling system where we can now recycle greasy bottom pizza boxes?
Updates to paper mills abilities to clean materials have allowed them to accept these greasy pizza boxes.
Additional Information
Additional information about all of the services provided by the Streets Division can be found at our website, www.cityofmadison.com/Streets.