How to recycle lots of cardboard and packing paper? (Austin: fit in, elementary school)

[Paulmmm]

My wife and I just moved to Austin and we have over a hundred moving boxes of all sizes, along with a lot of clean paper that we used to pack the boxes with. At least 80 or so are good enough to move on through craigslist, but the rest are just beaten to death or have been cut up, so can't be reused. I was told by our neighbors that recycle is once a week, and everything has to fit in the little blue recycle box that came with the house. But there must be some way to recycle all the other stuff we have, isn't there? If the city can't pick all that up at our house, is there a recycling station that we can drop everything off at? Can someone point me in a good direction here? Thanks!

And I know I've been asking a lot of "I'm new to Austin, so can you help me with ...?" questions over the last couple of months, but I really look forward to learning the lay of the land and being able to actually answer some questions really soon, too.

[Trainwreck20]

Check out the recycling page for the City of Austin:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/recycling.htm

Specifically:

Corrugated cardboard must be flattened and cut or folded to 2 feet by 2 feet so that it will fit in the truck. Tie the pieces together with string, tape or twine. Solid Waste Services may not collect larger pieces of corrugated cardboard or cardboard that has not been tied into bundles.

We tie ours up in about 2.5 by 2.5 bundles, I would guess, and have never had a problem.

[jhwest]

It may depend on your garbage company. I have Al Clawson and they do not recycle. It is not cost effective for some reason. When I called Al Clawson they referred me to the recycling place. I called them and they told me I could bring my cardboard in for recycling but it's way out by Georgetown or somewhere. What a waste of gas. So now I just leave the cardboard out for the garbage guys. I just feel horrible about that, but I don't really know what else to do.

[andream]

Here's what we did after all our cardboard was left at the curb since we didn't fold and tie it together properly--what a waste of time!

Take it to a local elementary school that has a recycling dumpster in the parking lot--it's used to recycle cardboard and newspaper as a fundraiser. Wish I had known about this before it took me hours just bundling up the boxes...

[Paulmmm]

Originally Posted by andream

Here's what we did after all our cardboard was left at the curb since we didn't fold and tie it together properly--what a waste of time!

Take it to a local elementary school that has a recycling dumpster in the parking lot--it's used to recycle cardboard and newspaper as a fundraiser. Wish I had known about this before it took me hours just bundling up the boxes...

Thanks for the great suggestion, andream. I don't mind driving everything some place as long as it gets recycled (and especially if I'm helping a school raise money). And thanks to everyone else for letting me know about the recycle/trash system. I was so naive, I didn't even realize that I'd be getting charged every month for the size of trash and recycle I put out. I assumed it was just part of the taxes I paid. The things I'm learning as a first-time owner!

[andream]

You can get more blue recycle bins delivered to your home--call the COA. We have 3--they don't charge you for those, BUT you are charged for the size of trash cart you have.

[fil]

Check to see if your moving company offers a free reclaim service.

A1 Freeman had a pick up service for us to use after they moved us.

They get money for the recycled boxes and packing paper.

[muddaerf]

In this day and age of environmental concern, I suggest selling your boxes on Craigslist so they can be reused! I read about this once in a magazine and thought it was a great idea.

Plain and simple, moving boxes are expensive and dumpster diving for them is a pain. I suggest selling them on Craigslist or if you are in need of something (if you recently moved here there are probably lots of things you can think of), you can set up a trade for them on Craigslist as well (i.e., will trade 10 small U-Haul moving boxes for two plastic storage tubs, etc. etc.).

Just a thought!