Cereals are considered to be great, full of nutrition, and convenient breakfast. Whenever you are running late, you can have just a bowl of cereal with milk and you are good to go. Cereals are used in almost every household as the day’s first meal.
If a product is widely used and has a huge range of consumers that purchase these food items on a daily or weekly basis. There are numerous brands in the market preparing cereals and making them available to the customers.
These manufacturers use different packaging materials to prepare these cereal boxes so that they can be distinctive and significant in the market. We have to make sure that if a product is widely used. It should be packaged in a type of material that is recyclable and reusable so that it does not exert any harmful effects on our environment.
Cereal Boxes can be Easily Recycled up to 6 Times
These packaging boxes are manufactured from chipboard also termed as paperboard material which is considered a great choice for packaging edible items as this material provides perseverance to the food items and allows them to remain fresh for longer periods.
Paperboard protects food items from bacteria, contamination, microorganisms, and moisture which makes it a great fit in the packaging industry. Moreover, this material proves to be safer for the environment because it can be completely recycled for almost six times.
These boxes are made from paperboard, which is a very lightweight material that makes it bio-degradable and reusable. Therefore this paperboard can be recycled very conveniently.
Most of the cereal boxes we use are already manufactured from recycled paper. After being recycled for almost six times. The fibers of these materials get weakened and worn out and cannot be used to package products again. However, this recycled paperboard can be used with cardboard and can start a new life from scratch.
Recycling is a very essential process that reduces the strain on the environment. Through this procedure, we can save and conserve our resources. Furthermore, recycling can also reduce the expenses involved in the packaging processes of products.
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How Cereal Boxes are Recycled?
These packaging boxes are broken down into smaller pieces or in the form of pulp before recycling, in this way they take up less space in the recycling machine with the help of water. Then these boxes are filtered and washed to get rid from inks, coatings, and other types of contaminants.
1. Collecting The Boxes
The first step involved in the recycling process is the collection of used boxes. People opt for different disposing procedures. Some people discard these boxes in the dustbin, some keep them to be utilized in the future or some people throw them in specially placed recycle bins. So the manufacturers have to collect these materials from all of these sources.
2. Shredding
The next step is shredding. After the collection of these used boxes, they are shredded through mechanical shredders. These boxes are broken down into smaller pieces or in the form of pulp in these shredders. This process is necessary because larger pieces cannot be processed. Moreover, in the shredded form, these boxes take up less space so more material can be recycled simultaneously after shredding.
3. Washing to Remove Contaminants
After that, the shredded material is washed and cleaned thoroughly to remove residues like pollutants, inks, coatings, and other types of pollutants. Cleaning can be done either manually or through machines but we have to make sure that the material we are going to recycle is pure from impurities so that the other processes involved in recycling can take place smoothly and without any kind of hindrance.
4. Pressing Fibers
The last procedure involved in this recycling process is to press the fibers of this biodegradable material, in this process a uniform thick sheet of paper is created. Pressing the fibers is the last and most crucial phase in which you have to control sheet thickness.
Moreover, to achieve a flawless finish one can take care of the surface treatment. The paper sheets created from pressing can be used to manufacture paper bags or product boxes according to the needs of manufacturers.
Why is it Necessary to Recycle Cereal Boxes?
If we don’t recycle these boxes, they can accumulate on the surface of the earth and can cause a lot of negative impacts on the natural well-being of our environment. Therefore recycling can effectively reduce waste generation and can protect our environment from various problems like pollution and global warming.
In today’s era, our environment has already been polluted by various harmful activities. So it has become more necessary to protect our environment from any further loss. We should utilize bio-degradable materials in the packaging of products so they can be broken down and can be reused multiple times.
Furthermore, we can also minimize the cost of packaging if we reuse and repurpose the packaging material again and again.
Recycling can prove to be a really cost-effective process in minimizing the expenses of packaging material so the manufacturers can package their products in these recycled materials at the lowest costs.
