Cardboard Contamination: What You Should Avoid When Recycling

23rd Mar 2023

Since 31st March 2025, new recycling rules came into force for businesses in England with 10 or more full-time equivalent (FTE) employees making it essential for workplaces to understand what cardboard contamination is and why it's important when recycling at work.

The Problem of Cardboard Wish-Cycling at Work

Waste segregation has grown in importance for workplaces in England due to the introduction of new workplace recycling rules in 2025. Cardboard contamination can be caused by workplace “wish cyclers” who optimistically pop all types of cardboard into a recycling bin, hopeful that it'll be checked by someone else. However, this oversight may cause issues down the line.

Commercial DMR (Dry Mixed Recyclables) bins are not as common as they used to be because waste firms found that cross contamination was more likely when they encouraged people to mix cardboard with other materials. Having clearly marked bins for just one type of waste can help to prevent contamination, but for premises with lots of waste and not much space, this can prove to be tricky to implement.

The bottom line is that dirty, greasy, mouldy or otherwise contaminated cardboard waste simply cannot be recycled. As a consequence, mixing contaminated cardboard with clean waste cardboard can result in the entire load heading to a waste-to-energy or landfill site instead.

What is Contaminated Cardboard?

Baled cardboard Contaminated cardboard is cardboard waste that cannot be recycled and includes:

Binned Cardboard – Any cardboard put into a workplace recycling bin that’s greasy, covered in leftover food, covered with excessive plastic tape, containing other packaging materials, wet or mouldy.
Baled Cardboard – Where non-cardboard items have been mixed into a bale of cardboard, even if the materials are recyclable.

In both cases, recycling facilities find it challenging to process the cardboard and may reject the load completely. 

What Happens if You Contaminate Your Workplace Recycling?

Popping a greasy pizza box in your cardboard recycling bins could lead to significant repercussions for your place of work.

Failed Waste Collections: Your waste contractor may refuse to empty your cardboard bins or collect baled material if contaminants are present. This may mean that your business has to pay a much higher disposal charge due to the application of Landfill Tax.

Scrapped Recycling Processes: Contaminated cardboard may be diverted to an incinerator to be turned into energy or sent to landfill because it’s simply too costly or complex to remove contaminants from a large load. As a result, contaminated recycling results in a smaller percentage of your commercial waste being recycled if it gets refused.

Financial Penalties: Businesses failing to remove contaminants from cardboard destined for recycling may receive fines from their waste contractor or local officials.

Here’s the lowdown on how your place of work can keep good-quality recyclable cardboard within the circular economy. 

How to Check for Contamination:

With a few easy changes to our working habits, we can all play our part to improve the UK’s cardboard recycling track record. 

LOOK FOR Oil/GREASE Residue

Before you pop your cardboard into the recycling bin or cardboard baler, cast your eye over it for any oil stains or residue. In some business sectors, such as retail, this may be less of an issue. However, oil-stained cardboard may be a regular occurrence in industrial facilities or commercial kitchens where greases and oils are used so extra diligence is needed.

REMOVE PLASTIC COATED Envelopes and Labels

Check all packaging for sticky labels or plastic envelopes containing delivery notes, which you often find taped to the outside of a box. 

PEEL OFF Excess Packaging Tape

While many companies have switched to cardboard tape, plastic packaging tape remains a problem for recycling companies. Remove any excess tape before putting your cardboard into the recycling bin. 

REMOVE PACKAGING INSERTS

Check cardboard boxes for packaging foams, bubble wrap and polystyrene inserts - all these need to be removed.

CHECK FOR Food RESIDUE

After emptying a box of food, check if the inside of the box is stained. If so, cut off the offending section, where possible and recycle the clean part.

How Can You Keep Your Cardboard Fresh?

It may take a little effort to remove contaminants from cardboard, but it's a worthwhile task. However, sometimes, despite your best intentions, you may not be able to fully remove the contaminant. In such cases, cut off the contaminated section of cardboard, because your workplace has a duty of care to responsibly dispose of workplace waste.

After sorting your cardboard, it’ll need to be stored in a dry, yet secure place, away from any other contaminants, to prevent it from getting dirty or wet.

Cardboard is notoriously bulky, so it may be a challenge to find enough space to separate and store it. Investing in a cardboard baler can pay dividends as not only does the machine compress the cardboard into a dense block, known as a bale, but its chamber can also act as a temporary storage area for clean cardboard until you’ve collected enough to turn the machine on. Bales are tidier, stackable, and easier to store than loose cardboard.

Explore Our Recycling Machinery

Talk to our expert team at QCR, who can advise you on the most effective cardboard recycling solutions for your business. Whether you’re looking to buy or rent, we can offer affordable recycling machinery for cardboard waste.

Updated: October 2026