Corrugated of Course

Buy a kid an expensive toy and what do they do? They play with it for a while but eventually it gets shoved aside in favor of the box. A ship, a plane, a castle… it doesn’t matter, in their inquisitive minds that box could become absolutely anything!

Ever wondered what to do with that pizza you can’t quite finish? This video shows how existing packaging, with some simple but clever design features, could be used to store the left-overs.

Fun, but it has a serious point. We’ve reported before the high levels of food wasted in high income countries by us, the consumers (Read: Nurturing our Food).

Inspiration is a state of mind. You don’t need to travel to the other side of the world to see things differently, there are opportunities for inspiration all around us, all the time. Take Bin Xu for example; while he was studying to be an architect he was also working in a supermarket, opening and disposing of thousands of boxes as he refilled the supermarket shelves. While opening yet another box, the Chinese student was caught by the strong character of corrugated board, “It is low cost and you can find it everywhere”.

We are sometimes asked if the recycing of Pizza boxes is in any way affected by the grease and food, such as cheese, left in them after use.

We have a definitive answer to this question. In Europe pizza boxes are most certainly recyclable and recycled. There is absolutely no problem in the paper mills where the recycling takes place. Food residues left over after use of the boxes by consumers are eliminated easily.