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Wet Strength Cardboard is the packaging material that beer and pop bottles and cans and other <br />(non-freezer) food items are packaged in. Pop and beer boxes are meant to contain items (bottles <br />or cans) that will be chilled. When metal and glass is chilled condensation forms and comes into <br />contact with the box. This liquid would normally degrade the box and cause it to tear open. To <br />prevent this, manufacturers coat the material with a small amount of plastic to repel the liquid. <br />This coating protects the boxes, but makes the boxes break down slower during the pulping <br />process. <br />Similarly, milk cartons and juice boxes are high grade paper layered with plastic to allow them to <br />contain the liquid within without breaking down. <br />When the paper mill dumps all of the tons of mixed paper into the pulper it is pulped for a certain <br />standard amount of time based on what the mill believes the bails are made of. Not knowing the <br />amount of wet-strength cardboard and milk cartons and juice boxes in the bails means that these <br />items have not been fully pulped by the end of the pulping process. This material is then <br />considered waste and is skimmed off and landfilled or burned. <br />What does this mean? It means that: <br />1. After the resident took the time to set the material out, taking their time and energy, <br />2. After the recycling company was paid to collect and transport the material from the curb <br />to the processing facility, taking fuel and time, <br />3. After the processing facility sorted all of the material and bailed it up, taking a good deal of <br />energy and time, <br />4. After all those bails were shipped to the paper mill, taking fuel and energy, <br />5. After the paper mill attempted to pulp the material and it didn't work, taking energy and <br />tune, <br />The material was wasted, costing tremendous amounts of energy, fuel, time and money. <br />This does not happen in Roseville. The reason again, is that the City of Roseville and Eureka <br />Recycling share a value. This value is that if a resident takes the time and effort to set out <br />something that can be recycled their efforts should not be wasted any more than the materials <br />they set out should. Eureka Recycling prevents this waste by further sorting the paper products <br />collected in Roseville. Rather than stopping at mixed papers, we sort wet strength, milk carton <br />and juice box material into their own categories. This means that when the paper mill buys these <br />specific materials they know that it will need to be pulped a little longer. They take this step, and <br />the valuable fibers in this material are preserved and recycled into new products. This is only <br />possible because Eureka Recycling takes the time to sort this material. As a result, over 9 tons of <br />material collected from residents of Roseville was recycled into new products, whereas if it was <br />collected elsewhere it would be wasted. <br />Because Eureka Recycling further sorts the materials into bails of only these items the paper mills <br />can recover these valuable fibers. It is one of the reasons why Eureka Recycling has such an <br />excellent reputation with end markets and why Roseville continues to get the highest value of the <br />material residents set out for recycling. <br />7 <br />