Are you recycling your cardboard boxes? If you’re like me, you always have a ton of boxes from receiving weekly meal kits or having lazy pizza nights. You might toss them into a recycling bin and never think about them again. But not all boxes and paper can be recycled.

Here’s an example: the pizza boxes you’ve been «recycling» are actually getting thrown away by employees at the recycling center (more below). The same goes for the glossy wrapping paper you thought would be fine to put into the paper recycling. 

According to the St. Charles County recycling center, 1 billion trees’ worth of paper is thrown in the trash annually, in the US alone. I spoke with some recycling experts and here’s what I found about the right way to recycle paper and cardboard.

How to recycle cardboard

There’s a right way to recycle your paper and cardboard. For example, you can recycle an Amazon box, but not a greasy pizza box. This is because the oils from the pizza saturate the cardboard, making it unrecyclable. It’s not completely impossible to recycle contaminated boxes. A recycling center employee told CNET to cut out the part of the cardboard that has residue on it. You can place the soiled partin your compost bin.

Before you bring the cardboard to your nearest recycling center or put it in a bin for pickup, break the boxes down so that they’re lying flat. This helps make more room in the bin and helps the recycling team to easily put the cardboard into their processing machines. Also, remove all contents from the inside, like bubble wrap.

Also, if you’re placing cardboard into a recycling bin without a lid, make sure it’s covered in case it rains. Wet cardboard can clog up the machines, causing an entire batch of cardboard to become contaminated.

If possible, remove the tape from the boxes before taking the cardboard to the recycling center, as well. Saving the employees a step can help make the recycling process more efficient.

The Environmental Protection Agency suggests checking with your local recycling provider for the proper way to recycle cardboard to ensure you’re following their standards.

How to recycle paper

Just like cardboard, there are certain types of paper you shouldn’t recycle. For example, the paper towel you used to wipe up spilled milk or gift wrap with a glossy finish. The EPA recommends looking for paper that has already been recycled when you go shopping so you know that the paper can be recycled again. 

When it comes time to recycle the paper you’ve used, avoid getting it wet as it reduces the value in the recycling market. Instead, keep it separate from other recyclables, like anything that could leak liquid. Also, wait until the morning of pickup to take the paper out to the curb if your bin doesn’t have a lid to prevent it from becoming wet due to rain.

Also, many recycling companies won’t accept shredded paper because it can get stuck in the machinery, so avoid shredding your paper. Instead, if there are confidential documents you want to recycle, like bank statements, use a marker to mark out important information.

What else can I do?

Recycling is one way to help reduce waste, but there are other ways to prevent it in the first place.

• Limit your use of paper.
• Reuse cardboard boxes or donate them to someone who will use them — for example, someone who’s moving.
• See if the companies sending you boxes will take them back for reuse.
• Reuse gift bags and tissue paper, and consider using paper gift wrap.

The Boeing Starliner started life in 2010, when it was selected by NASA to be the next reusable transport to the International Space Station. It took well over a decade, but Starliner is finally set to make its first crewed voyage to the ISS on Monday night, and you can watch it happen.

NASA scheduled the launch for 10:34 p.m. ET/7:34 p.m. PT on May 6 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral. The Starliner will launch with an Atlas V rocket that was created by the United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Traveling with the Starliner are astronauts Sunita (Suni) Williams and Barry (Butch) Wilmore. 

NASA says the missions will take the astronauts to the ISS for a little over a week to test the Starliner spacecraft and its subsystems before returning to Earth. The testing is the final step in certifying the Starliner for repeat use in transport missions to and from the ISS. If everything goes according to plan, the Starliner should reach the ISS approximately 26 hours after launch.

This is the first new spacecraft to head to the ISS since the SpaceX Demo-2 made the same voyage back in 2020. 

«The arrival of a brand-new vehicle, the first crewed flight of a new-generation spacecraft is a really big deal,» said Michael Barratt, one of seven residents of the ISS. «You leave nothing to chance.»

A mission 14 years in the making

The Starliner was initially conceived as a commercial effort to take more people into space. In 2014, NASA tapped Boeing and SpaceX, and made the Starliner one of the first privately constructed spacecraft to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA wanted to lean more on private business to build and maintain such spacecraft instead of performing all of the work by itself. 

Starliner had to learn how to walk before it could run, however. Initial test flights were delayed for several reasons, ranging anywhere from unfavorable weather conditions to software issues. The unmanned test flights were delayed again in 2021 and eventually pushed back to 2022 for myriad reasons. 

The unmanned test flight finally launched on May 19, 2022, and completed its mission a week later. It was a huge win for the Boeing crew since that opened the doors for a crewed mission to the ISS. NASA was pretty pumped about it as well. But that launch was pushed back due to various issues, including some with the Atlas V rocket that would be responsible for launching the Starliner. 

The delays are over now, and the rocket is ready for launch. 

How to watch the Boeing Starliner launch

NASA is livestreaming the event from its YouTube channel. The direct video link is here. NASA will begin coverage at 5:45 p.m. ET this evening and broadcast through the launch with commentary by Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith. 

Some other YouTube channels will also livestream the event, including SpaceX, Space.com’s VideoFromSpace channel and the Associated Press YouTube channel. There are several others as well, so surf YouTube for Starliner livestreams, and pick the one you like best.