We’ve Been Discarding Pizza Boxes Incorrectly This Entire Time

So you can’t recycle pizza boxes.

There’s a tiny sense of accomplishment you get after a major pizza party when you’re walking to the recycle bin with a huge stack of boxes. Apparently, that accomplishes nothing for the environment.

According to FOX News, a pizza lover recently set to discover if pizza boxes were really recyclable. Y’know since they’re made of cardboard.

The answer was no.

Darby Hoover of the Natural Resources Defense Council finally explained why you can’t just throw pizza boxes in with the recycling.

Turns out the porous paper used to make the boxes is “particularly susceptible to food and beverage contamination,” the resource specialist explained. This is largely due to all the leftover cheese, grease and oil that ends up stuck to the cardboard.

Food and oil can’t separate from paper when undergoing the pulping process.

However, for anyone who has a high-volume compost, you can chuck a pizza box in with other organic waste. Otherwise, you’re probably saving folks a lot of grief by simply throwing it in the trash can.