How green is your pizza? I’m not talking about the toppings (mmm, green peppers!) or the cheese (if your cheese is green, step away from the pizza!) I’m talking about the box! As you may already know, you cannot recycle pizza boxes because of the grease and food bits left behind by the pizza. Paper mills require clean paper for recycling so a greasy cardboard box will not work.
But while we begrudgingly toss our pizza boxes into the garbage, a nearby university has figured out the trick to making the popular late night snack a little more earth friendly. Instead of recycling the boxes, they’re composting them!
At North Carolina State University, dumpsters are strategically placed next to residence halls. Into the dumpsters go pizza boxes and even leftover pizza scraps and napkins! The contents of the dumpster then goes along with the rest of the school’s food waste to a North Carolina company that makes the scraps into compost and topsoil. The rich compost and topsoil are then sold to landscapers and organic farmers.
Is it just me or is that SUCH a cool idea?! Old pizza boxes are turned into something that helps grow healthy foods. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?