3 Reasons to Recycle Paper Tubes

Paper tubes are a part of everyday life. If you have ever purchased wrapping paper, tape, fabric on a roll, toilet paper, or paper towels, then you have seen paper tubes in your own home. If you look a little deeper, you will probably find other areas where cardboard tubes are also used in your home or office on a daily basis.
All of this paper use adds up. A paper tube is made from trees, just like furniture, paper plates, and other paper products. Luckily, most paper tubes are already made from recycled materials, which significantly cuts down on new tree usage. Imagine how many trees we would use every year if we never recycled paper tubes at all!
Next time you dispose of a paper tube, think twice before throwing it into the regular garbage. Although some landfills can filter out recyclable materials, many do not, which can lead to unnecessary paper waste. Consider the following benefits of recycling your paper tubes before you simply throw them into the trash:
According to the Green Press Initiative, in 2007, the newspaper industry used over 95 million trees just to create paper for newspapers and printed materials. Add the cardboard tube industry and other common uses for paper and that number increases significantly. To harvest this amount of paper, over 73 billion pounds of greenhouse gasses were produced. Cutting back on new paper use can significantly reduce both of these numbers.
Cardboard tubes are easy to recycle. All the recycling center has to do is break down the paper into pulp state, then refashion into new paper products. Commonly recycled materials made from cardboard tubes include egg cartons, fast-food bags, napkins, poster tubes and other cardboard products.
Most recycling centers accept paper products. With over 56,000 recycling centers in the United States, it should be easy to find a center close to you, even if your city does not offer curbside pickup. The extra drive is worth it to help improve the environment for today and the future.