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Q.1111:Can you recycle Egg Cartons ? Can you recycle Coffee Trays?
Ans.
Here we are only dealing with paperboard egg carton or coffee trays and NOT Styrofoam.
Technically there is no problem in recycling paperboard based CLEAN (not contaminated by the broken egg or spilled coffee) egg carton or coffee trays. Almost all egg cartons or coffee trays are made from recycled waste paper. The waste paper used is short fiber, made from mechanical pulp and one of the lowest quality. Egg carton or coffee trays can be at best recycled in same type of products with reinforcement from some new waste paper.
Economically it may make more sense to decompose egg carton and coffee trays than to recycle in to another egg carton or coffee trays as the transportation cost of irregularly shaped trays may be very high compared to telephone books or well stacked old newspapers.