Cardboard Concepts

The year of 2020 has brought many things into our lives that we never wanted. It is very true that our lives have changed and many of the things are negative.  The economy is doing poorly and yet we are now shopping online most of the time for the vast majority of our items.  It is a sad thing to think about but now we are getting so many boxes and packaging supplies delivered to our homes that we are having trouble getting rid of the items.  I know in my own personal life that I have tons of packaging supplies filling up my garage and I have to spend a few weeks finding ways to get rid of them safely and in accordance to my local rules and regulations for where I live.  This is important to follow the laws that you are bound to where you live so make sure you are following those. 

I have found that there are a lot of different ways to get rid of all of these boxes and that there are a lot of different ways not to do it as well.  Some of the ways that are not good are simply trashing the boxes all by themselves.  It is pretty simple to say that you will waste tons of trash bags trying to just trash these boxes all by themselves.  That is a very expensive and the least efficient way to get rid of them.  Now if you only get a box or two a week this is probably going to work well for you.  But if you have twenty or forty boxes a week then this way simply will not work.  Using scissors is also generally a bad idea because they are too small in teh handles and cardboard is super hard.  It will most likely give you blisters.  This happened to me and I was not a fan of it at all.

Another area that really is a good way to get rid of all these boxes is to cut them up with a knife.  You can use a folding knife, fixed blade, or a regular box cutter or razor blade.  I suggest using a box cutter or a nice fixed blade to do the job.  If you are going to be using a fixed blade then you need to get a steal and a handle that will work well for you.  You will also need a knife grind that works well for cutting.  Some knives are meant to cut different things and it is important to get one that will work well for cardboard because it is so hard to cut.

I like using a steel that is of a powder form.  most steel that starts with CPM are using powder metallurgy and generally has a good amount of edge retention.  This means that you won’t have to sharpen them much at all.  I use a Bark River Bravo LT in CPM3v for my boxes.  It is a comfortable fixed blade with a steel that has great edge retention.  I know that I am going to be able to cut down 20 boxes without having the knife go dull.  I am also able to not get blisters on my hands either.  Then I bag them up and am able to recycle them according to my local regulations.

This year we have seen shopping change in a dramatic amount of ways.  The online sales for the United States took to record highs in all categories.  People who have never shopped online have placed more orders then they know what to do with.  We are seeing tons of evidence of this we people are now making a sport and fun of how many packaging supplies are now filling up their trash, garage, and anywhere they can simply put them.  This can be a huge problem and a really big issue for a lot of people because not everyone has the ability to get rid of these items as easy as others.  It is true that many people want to be very environmentally conscious and many people simply just want to ge these items out of their house.  Either boat you fall into getting those packaging supplies out of your house can be a bit of a choir.  That is why today I want to go over some basic ground rules for safely breaking down all of those boxes.

The truth is that if you are now ordering a ton of items online that you are going to be getting a lot of boxes delivered to your door.  Those boxes have to go somewhere and in my neighborhood we can only get rid of so many trash cans and or bags per week.  We are also limited to having only one recycling trash can and it is not allowed during current legal regulations to make unnecessary trips to the recycling area.  So that is why I have worked hard to creating a good system for getting those boxes out of our home and property safely and happily.

I started by tearing them down by hand and the fact is that I was not really able to do very many without massive paper cuts or hurt hands.  The glaring truth is that many people are not able to tear apart corrugated boxes with ease.  It is hard and not very safe.  It is also not very safe to use scissors in the long term to break these boxes down to put in bags or trash cans.  The small handles and constant pressure quickly leads to red hot spots and soon to be blisters.  I tried this as well and since I had about 30 boxes to go through I did two before I got a blister.  THis was very disappointing and sad.  So I went to the next best options.

Using a high quality fixed blade knife is the best way to break down cardboard boxes. You can use a simple box cutter if you like, or a nice fixed blade with a comfortable handle.  I always use gloves so make sure to get one that allows you to have the space you need to handle it with care. Make sure you follow the rules to always cut away from yourself and to take your time.

Use a knife with a good steel that is very sharp.  The sharper the knife is the less resistance it will have and the less pressure you have to put on it.  This makes the cut safer all around and much easier as well.  This is done by sharpening your knife when it needs it.