Did you realize that in the United State over 90% of items shipped are packaged in cardboard?
There are over 400 million tons of paper and cardboard being manufactured worldwide. Just in the United States and Canada, there are approximately 1,500 corrugated packing plants. The demand for using cardboard as packaging material has made it the single largest waste product (by weight) in your trash and it is estimated that over 24 million tons of cardboard is discarded each year. It is not all gloom and doom.
The average recycle rate for cardboard in 1993 was 55%. In 2011 that figure jumped to 91% due to the mainstream adoption of recycling. So how much effect on the environment does recycling one ton of cardboard have?
It saves us around 9 cubic yards of landfill space, 700 gallons of water, and 46 gallons of oil.