Control Your Cardboard, Control Your Life

Cardboard is vital to modern life. But what happens when it piles up?

Since Albert Jones filed his U.S. patent for corrugated paper packing material in 1871, cardboard products have played the cart to globalization's horse. Cheaper and lighter than a crate and more protective than paper or straw, cardboard has made myriad goods affordable and deliverable to just about anywhere. From carrying glass vials of medicine at the turn of the 20th century to entire couches at the beginning of the 21st, cardboard is a linchpin of modern life.

So why do so many of us hate it so much? A few months back, I found myself losing sleep over the cardboard pile in our garage. It began with the disposable cocoons for a couch, bed frame, and mattress. As time schlepped on, the pile grew. Boxes for a dehumidifier (summer) and then a humidifier (winter) followed, along with various brown containers from Amazon and Walmart. I'd planned, as one does, to break them down as they arrived and put them in the recycling bin. But this only works if you do it, and I didn't.

When my wife and I realized getting rid of the pile would take months of filling the recycling bin with nothing but cardboard, we devised a new plan: drive the pile to a nearby county drop-off. Then the pile outgrew our cars.

Man plans; cardboard laughs. Man gives up.

How did we lose control? For one thing, household recycling bins have been no match for the massive amount of cardboard that accompanied the COVID-19 consumer spending binge. Sure, you can pile folded boxes on the curb and hope for the best, but drenched cardboard is less recyclable, and some jurisdictions charge penalties for material outside a bin—if they take it at all.

The one-size-fits-all approach to curbside recycling is a shame, as most recycled cardboard actually gets turned into other useful things, unlike a large portion of nominally recyclable plastics, which are sent to landfills or shipped overseas and burned. For me, the answer was not a bigger government bin or more government trucks but expanding my concept of cardboard's potential second life.

The first revelation was that it makes a fantastic soil supplement. Do you have a yard? A garden, perhaps? Buy a paper shredder that can handle 24 sheets and shred your cardboard. You can use those fragments as mulch in a vegetable or flower bed, or as the carbon element in a compost system. Large, heavy sheets of cardboard too tough to tear down or shred can be used as a weed mat and be covered in dirt or mulch (or shredded cardboard). Just make sure to peel the tape off before you return it to the earth.

City dwellers, you can also shred your cardboard and then put it in a recyclable bag (or right in the trash, if you care so little about the planet). No room for a shredder? Buy scissors made for cutting carpets; they cost roughly $20 on Amazon and make quick work of even the thickest cardboard. The goal is simply to reduce the cubic volume.

"Ah, but time is money," you say, and rightly so. Busy parents or moguls should direct their precious attention to a local freecycle group on Facebook or Nextdoor, where there is someone who will take anything provided it's free. Dead houseplants? This person wants them. A Ziploc bag full of mismatched screws from old Ikea furniture? Ditto. This person will also (probably) want your cardboard. Maybe he's moving, or maybe he's hoarding; it doesn't matter as long as he takes the pile.

You can also pay someone to take your overwhelming quantity of cardboard. Post a pic of your pile on Craigslist, offer $50 for pickup, and eager beavers will inundate your phone within the hour. Or try a service like TaskRabbit. The labor market may be hot, but it will never be too hot for odd-jobbers. (Just make sure to take your address off the boxes in case they end up illegally dumped in an alley or side street.) If you care deeply about cardboard recycling, a licensed junk hauler or moving company will take your pile to the right place for a thicker fee than the Craigslist merc.

Find a creative way to reuse or recycle your cardboard, and you can resume appreciating it. The alternative is to buy less, and where's the fun in that?

Comments

[rbike]

Take the pile out and burn them in the backyard. That's what we would do here in middle America.

And we sleep soundly knowing that if the climate change creeps are correct, next enter will be warmer.

[gagow1]

My Companion mother makes 55 bucks an hour on the PC(Personal PC). She has been out of w0rk for quite some time however last month her check was 11,000 bucks only w0rking on the PC(Personal PC) for 9 hours per day.

OPEN>>>>>>bitecoinsallar12.COM

[Roger Knights]

A reciprocating saw, aka a Skilsaw, will rip through cardboard in a jiffy. If it’s awkwardly large, get another person or a sawbuck to assist.

[Rob Misek]

Cardboard was the environmental pariah of the new millennium due to the pulp and paper industries environmental damage.

Plastic reusables were the proclaimed “solution” and billions were spent by industry to eliminate cardboard packaging.

Every item we purchase these days gets chauffeured to our individual homes with petroleum powered vehicles, in complex disposable packages loaded with cardboard and plastic packaging.

We’re constantly told to wring our wrists and pay more and more to achieve a “net zero carbon footprint” which simply means paying some nefarious taxes commensurate with some obscure idea of a carbon footprint.

It’s pathetic how easily people are manipulated by propaganda.

[sarcasmic]

I remember when they pushed plastic grocery bags as a way to save the trees. Now plastic grocery bags are illegal in my state.

[TheReEncogitationer]

You must be so drunk that you don’t know what a shit sandwich is either. You’re having a friendly conversation with a shit sandwich known as Herr Misek.

[TheReEncogitationer]

We all know what "Solution" you have for Carbon that would end up putting more Carbon in the air.

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Michael Ejercito]

We have certain hemp products in storage when he and his fellow dreckvolk act out!

[TheReEncogitationer]

Nah! Make it piano wire! It would be more poetic justice, since The Wickedly Great One used piano wire against one group of coup attempters.

Also, Misek and his fellow Volkisch Volk don't deserve a product as fast-acting, stout, and versatile as hemp.

[Rob Misek]

Hahaha

You’re an anonymous coward. Afraid to be recognized and held accountable for your drivel.

Fuck off Kol Nidre boyS.

[TheReEncogitationer]

In order to make people "accountable " you have to be willing to do some (((Accounting.)))
🙂
😉
So how are you going to do that when your books are all in the red?

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Rob Misek]

By my account, you lying waste of skin fuckwits have never refuted anything that I’ve said.

If you have reached a different conclusion, prove it. A simple link and description of what was refuted will do.

No, of course you can’t. Hahaha

[Rob Misek]

You’re a coward mincing words.

Say what you mean fuxkwit. Hahaha

[TheReEncogitationer]

He’s mincing words so you can comprehend and swallow them.

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Rob Misek]

Hahaha

[TheReEncogitationer]

I see you'd be one of the laughing boys huffing Nitrous Oxide in between dropping pills of Zyklon B into the showers.

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Rob Misek]

Through the fresh air vents? Hahaha

Some gas chambers!

I am laughing Kol Nidre boy.

[CE]

I remember that. As if paper and cardboard are anywhere near as bad for the environment as all those plastic bags. And as if trees don’t grow back in a couple of decades, while the plastic lasts several lifetimes.

[Rob Misek]

Our establishment is driven by greed not altruism.

While you may be correct about plastic, cheap disposable items provide the returns the establishment wants.

As long as the primary motive is profit all other interests are secondary.

[TheReEncogitationer]

The Altruism you want is people working themselves to death for “The Common Good Over The Individual Good” told of in your 25-Point Platform.

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Rob Misek]

Jews need their Nazi bogeyman story.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Paper or plastic, Herr Misek would burn them both as tinder for the ovens in death camps.

[Rob Misek]

I’ve refuted that bullshit propaganda story countless times and to date none of you fuckwits have ever refuted anything that I’ve said.

There are only two possible explanations for this.

First, I’ve shared the truth that cannot be refuted.

Second, you’re too stupid to refute what you deny.

Which is it fuckwit?

The following points refute key elements of the holocaust with logic and science. Truth can’t be refuted.

There has been no objective forensic analysis at any supposed site. There is no physical evidence. Any activity that demonstrates and shares evidence to refute the holocaust is a crime in every nation where it allegedly occurred.

The fact that all evidence that refutes the holocaust is criminal in every nation where it allegedly occurred is especially relevant if you are accepting any evidence at all from those nations.

Refusing to consider evidence is the definition of bias, bigotry and a disregard for justice.

Without objective forensic evidence all we have is a story made up of piecemeal recollections of events from paid and coerced fuckwitnesses.

I refute those stories with correctly applied logic and science.

The crucial event of the story is the cyanide gassing of millions of Jews. That couldn’t have happened as claimed. The story is bullshit.

Jews have published books illustrated with pictures of themselves shirtless dragging piles of gassed bodies from the chambers to cremation ovens.

But cyanide is absorbed through the skin and NOBODY could have survived a single day of such activity much less collecting reparations into their old age reminiscing about it years later.

Those fuckwitnesses lied.

Anyone who ever saw the naked body of somebody who died from cyanide asphyxiation would NEVER forget the red skin colour. The bodies necessary reaction to being unable to process oxygen.

Not a single surviving fuckwitness ever mentioned it.

Also, no dark cherry red skin discolouration was visible in any supposed photographs of bodies of so-called victims of the holocaust.

The fact is that you can’t explain it and your bigotry prevents you from recognizing the ONLY logical conclusion.

Not a single fuckwitness testimony or alleged photograph of bodies was of anyone who died from cyanide exposure.

So much for the “evidence” of a holocaust.

And so it goes with every bullshit story told by paid and coerced lying fuckwitnesses. The facts prove otherwise.

Have you ever heard of the Bletchley park decrypts of the famous German enigma machines? It was credited for turning the tide of the war as allies knew what military actions the Germans were planning.

Only released in the 1980s those translated messages included prison camp information, deaths, transfers and requests for medicines to treat illnesses. The numbers of dead don’t support the holocaust narrative of which there was also no mention of.

Here are some actual enigma decrypts from Bletchley park in 1942 when deaths were at their highest.

Covering the period 3rd Aug. 1942 – 25th Sept. 1942

A further examination is made of Concentration Camp figures; deaths from typhus have reached a very high figure in AUSCHWITZ.

A suspected case of typhus is reported from AUSCHWITZ (223b/42). It is probable that on the 6th August Nachschubkdtr. Russland Mitte requests typhus vaccine for 50 men and spottenfever serum for 20

For the first time returns are given for deaths of prisoners (223b/14,24,43,50): the figures for August are: NIEDERHAGEN 21, AUSCHWITZ 6829 (or 6889) men, 1525 women;.

Firstly the number of dead for the month are nowhere near what is necessary to support the holocaust narrative.

Secondly, notable is the concern over typhus deaths and the requests for medical supplies to treat.

Thirdly, are you willing and eager to perform the feeble mental gymnastics required to believe, as the story goes, that Germans were communicating in code about prison camps while talking plainly about their military actions with their top secret enigma machines?

That would require you to really believe that Germany INTENTIONALLY lost the war to cover up the holocaust while ostensibly leaving lying witnesses alive in the prison camps to tell their stories as they retreated. The contradiction refutes the story.

Let’s not forget another old timey favourite.The story of Babi Yar is a popular lesson in Jewish schools described as the single largest event of the holocaust.

The lesson is that between 30,000 and 100,000 Jews were taken to a ravine in Ukraine where they were killed.

The story is told by one Jewish survivor, Dina Pronicheva, an actress who testified that she was forced to strip naked and marched to the edge of the ravine. When the firing squad shot, she jumped into the ravine and played dead. After being covered by thousands of bodies and tons of earth she dug herself out, unscathed, when the coast was clear and escaped to tell the story.

She is apparently the only person in history to successfully perform a matrix bullet dodge at a firing squad. The soldier aiming point blank at her never noticed her escape. Never walked a few steps to the edge of the ravine to finish her off.

They were stripped naked to leave no evidence. Naked she had no tools to dig herself out from under 30,000 bodies and tons of dirt.

Only after the deed was done, the nazis realized that so many bullet ridden bodies were evidence. Oops, rookie move. So they brought more Jews and millions of cubic feet of firewood to dig them up, cremate them on gravestones and scatter their ashes in surrounding fields.

There has been no forensic investigation at the site. None of the bullets allegedly burned with the bodies have been recovered. Not one shred of physical evidence of this has ever been found.

There are military aerial photographs of the area at the time but they don’t show any evidence of the narrative, no people, no equipment, no firewood, no moved earth, no tracks of any kind.

Simply stating these facts is a crime in Ukraine where the Babi Yar narrative is taught in school.

The numbers of dead from German enigma decrypts does align with Red Cross numbers.

The Red Cross was founded in 1863 with the purpose of protecting the interests of victims of conflicts.

The Red Cross regularly visited all prison camps. It was their job to report the cause of all deaths. They recorded a grand total of 271,000 among all camps for the entire war. It is a matter of record.

The holocaust fairytale requires us to believe that they were so unaware of what might be happening that they completely missed 95% of the victims in prison camps.

AND that they had not so much as an inkling that a holocaust was going on right under their noses even though allied media propaganda was reporting it and it was their sole mission to identify it. Because there is no evidence of any Red Cross document suggesting they did.

Are you performing those feeble mental gymnastics? How gullible are you?

Zyklon B is an off the shelf insecticide used among other places in Prison camps to delouse clothing and bedding to save lives by preventing deadly typhus. The system used for years before and during the war throughout Europe employed heating to release cyanide gas, fans to circulate the gas and more to exhaust the chambers to make the de loused articles safe to handle.

Pictures of this equipment and the small de lousing buildings with clothing racks still exist in Prison camps. But no evidence of any gas delivery system has ever been found in the shower houses where the bullshit holocaust allegedly occurred. In fact, the story has changed to that they just threw the heat activated pellets onto the cold drainless floors in rooms full of people.

Such an inefficient method would have taken too long to kill the required number of Jews. The pellets couldn’t be spread evenly in rooms full of people. The cold drainless floors would have delayed the release of cyanide from the pellets that people would have swept away from themselves. Any dead would have released all their bodily fluids and their bodies covering the pellets. Vomit would have been added to the floor prior to entering such a room.

According to the testimony of the so called survivor, the timing entering the chambers immediately, the details shirtless survivor, piles of bodies with unvented cyanide gas pockets in every space, death from repeated exposure as per testimony would have been necessary, not just possible.

According to Martin Gilbert in his book, Holocaust Journey, the gas chambers at Treblinka utilized carbon monoxide from diesel engines. At the Nuremberg trial of the Nazi war criminals, the American government charged that the Jews were murdered at Treblinka in “steam chambers,” not gas chambers.

Gasoline engine exhaust contains about ten times the carbon monoxide than diesel. Diesel exhaust is relatively safe. Even if the Diesel engines were running at their maximum of 500 ppm, death would take several hours. Far too long to support the narrative.

If Germans had used gasoline engines, death would have been in a few minutes. But in the holocaust narrative for treblinka diesel was used even though Germany had plenty of gasoline for their tanks. Nuremberg still recorded that they were “steam chambers”.

Somebody is lying. They weren’t both steam chambers and diesel gas chambers.Which stupid lie is more believable? Does it even matter to you?

The story of gassing Jews began as British propaganda to turn popular opinion against Germany. It was inspired to draw attention away from Jewish Bolshevik war crimes in Russia because that would work against allied propaganda. It also served global Jewish interests to create undeserved sympathy for Jews who had publicly organized boycotts of Germany to drive Germany to war.

There is a documented letter from the head of British propaganda to the head of the war office recommending that they cease the “gassing Jews“ propaganda because there was no evidence for it and if found out would work against their propaganda efforts.

Head of British Psychological Warfare Executive (Propaganda), Victor Cavendish-Bentick in a handwritten note, wrote on Aug 27th, 1943,

“We have had a good run for our money with this gas chamber story we have been putting about, but don’t we run the risk eventually we are going to be found out and when we are found out the collapse of that lie is going to bring the whole of our psychological warfare down with it? So isn’t it rather time now to let it drift off by itself and concentrate on other lines that we are running.”

Public Record Office Document F0371/34551 revealed by Stephen Mitford Goodson, ‘Inside the South African Reserve Bank’.

Jews had been publicly claiming a holocaust of 6 million Jews in various nations no less than 166 times between 1900 and 1945. Only to coerce sympathy to raise money. Like the wastes of skin who fake cancer on go fund me pages.

What’s the probability after being proven lying about 6 million Jewish deaths by holocaust over 166 times that the 167th claim is true? Better to buy a lottery ticket. Though the bullshiit narrative has been like a lottery bonanza for Jews.

The only thing the bullshit holocaust narrative has in common with WW2 is that they were both the creation of Jews.

These Jewish leaders are admitting it. Are they lying?

They are properly referenced quotes from Jewish leaders demonstrating that they had intended to create and force Germany into WW2.

That kind of evil is absolutely relevant when considering the character required to lie to the world about a holocaust for the 167 th time.

“We Jews are going to bring a war on Germany”. David A Brown, national chairman, united Jewish campaign, 1934.

“The Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war against Germany …holy war against Hitlers people”

Chaim Weismann, the Zionist leader, 8 September 1939, Jewish chronicle.

The Toronto evening telegram of 26 February 1940 quoted rabbi Maurice l. Perlzweig of the world Jewish Congress as telling a Canadian audience that” The world Jewish Congress has been at war with Germany for seven years”.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Thank you for putting your Gish Galloping lunacy on display for all to see!

Fuck Off, Nazi!

[Rob Misek]

It’s always a pleasure to demonstrate the truth that you can’t refute.

[Rob Misek]

Israel is a xenophobic stolen apartheid state. Jews have oppressed and terrorized Palestinians since they stole Palestine and started the Middle East conflict in 1948.

What business do we have promising unconditional support for a satanic religious cult? What do we get out of it?

Jews are all members of the same religious cult, Judaism, it isn’t a race.

While god in Christianity is the spirit of truth and Satan is the father of lies, the holiest Jewish prayer on their holiest day is clearly a plan to lie to people.

Here is the Kol Nidre text. Jews lie to themselves and others by claiming that it is about lying to god, not people. But the simplest logic demonstrates that lies can’t work on omnipresent beings like god who exist simultaneously in the past present and future.

“All vows, obligations, oaths, and anathemas [curses]which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement until the next we do repent. May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made of no effect: they shall not bind us nor have any power over us. The vows shall not be reckoned vows; the obligations shall not be obligations; nor the oaths be oaths.”

Lying is coercion. It is compelling people with the false authority of truth to act in the liar’s interests instead of their own.

What wealth couldn’t you have if you could compel anyone to act in your interest instead of their own?

Freemasonry is a secret society of satanists who compel others with lies to act in their interests. It is an ancient pyramid scheme for wealth and power. It is rampant worldwide, one third of the founders were Freemasons and the group is symbolized with the pyramid on the US 1$ bill.

Jewish leaders have publicly claimed ownership of freemasonry. Secrets require lies and lies require secrets.

Here is an informative video made by a Freemason Altiyan Child’s who used the pyramid scheme to achieve wealth and fame but who later felt guilty and decided to expose it to the world instead.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPisjVhIZSc

How do we stop satanism? Simply, we criminalize lying.

Jews will need to find a new religion and won’t be getting unconditional support from anyone.

[Rod Flash]

What a load of crap. "I was lazy and let it get away from me, so I'll write a story about how hard my life is".

BS. Just do the work. Spend a few hpurs breaking it down. Take a few trips to the recycle center. Done. Quit whining. Jeez.

[Kungpowderfinger]

Imagine getting your ass kicked by cardboard boxes

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

Imagine writing about it.

Imagine a “libertarian” magazine publishing it

[Longtobefree]

Imagine a bunch of whiners whining in the comment section about this whiner.

[JFree]

The modern American tragedy.

[mad.casual]

The commenters aspire to comment. The magazine aspires to the retarded idea, and it is retarded, of liberating us from the tyranny of cardboard with scissors (not, say, a box cutter like anyone who actually processes cubic meters of cardboard every day would use or, say, fire like any sapient homo back to the neanderthals would use). And you, apparently, are here to white knight for the retarded libertarian magazine that aspires to liberate us from the tyranny of cardboard with scissors (but not box cutters or fire).

[Ben of Houston]

This sounded like something that would have been written on Cracked as a semi-intelligent humorous discussion. It's okay as a side-piece, so long as this sort of content doesn't become the focus of the site.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Just wait till Reason puts out its shocking expose on Big Cardboard.

[TheReEncogitationer]

And he needs to listen to this ditty all the whole getting it done:

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out--Shel Silverstein
https://youtu.be/0jxTy6RiyPY?si=gaXnDg-ZnDJ_I9Bn

🙂
😉

[TheReEncogitationer]

And not one mention of using a woodchopper! Damn! How the mighty have fallen!
🙂
😉

[ErinS]

I have a small business and get millions of boxes, which I’d always break down, I’m not that lazy, but you couldn’t walk through the garage to the beer fridge without imminent danger.
I realized loading a car and taking it to recycling takes way less time than doing the dishes or laundry and it’s amazing, 45 minutes, clean garage, feeling like you accomplished something much bigger than I actually did.

[CE]

We have the tiniest trash cans where I live. And to make matters worse, they split them in two. So you have half a trash can for trash, which more than fills up every week (so I have to dump the excess at a the dumpster of a nearby apartment building), half a can for "food scraps recycling" (which started mysteriously about the same time as "plant based meat" became popular), and another can split in half for containers (bottles and cans) and half for paper (including cardboard). And my wife orders so many boxes on Amazon the cardboard has to be spread out over several weeks sometimes.

[Ben of Houston]

They also burn quite well. I have a tendency to turn my cardboard boxes into smores.

[Spartacus]

We have seven cats--all our cardboard boxes are spoken for.

Besides, if you can't find time to break down boxes and put them out for recycling, how are you going to manage shredding them or doing any of that other stuff that requires more time and effort than just getting rid of them?

[mad.casual]

Besides, if you can’t find time to break down boxes and put them out for recycling, how are you going to manage shredding them or doing any of that other stuff that requires more time and effort than just getting rid of them?

I just read down to the "Buy some scissors off Amazon." part and LOL'ed. It comes across as a city-dweller looking at 10-acres full of weeds saying, "Just pull 'em, what's the problem?"

[CE]

Scissors? Get a good quality utility knife. Makes quick work of them, and the blades last a long time cutting cardboard.

[markm23]

I'm wondering if Riggs ever learned that you can just cut the tape on the bottom flaps, and the box collapses flat? For a larger box, fitting it in the recycling bin might take another cut and some folding, but it's not that hard - unless you're the sort of citified wuss who hires someone else to do every bit of physical work, and has never learned to use the tool which distinguished Homo Sapiens from animals - the knife.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Indeed! I’ve noticed that many of the scratching pads and posts in the Pet section of the store where I work are made of stacked, glued, corrugated cardboard boxes. Maybe making these would be an entrepreneural opportunity for the author.

"They say a that hobby sometimes helps!"
🙂
😉
Cheese Chasers–Looney Tunes (Fast Forward to 4:07–4:24)
https://dai.ly/x8mkq6v

[Dillinger]

>>We have seven cats

lol I have one but he gets all the boxes for a limited time.

[Spartacus]

Well of course he does.

[mad.casual]

Mike, in addition to the "just burn it" recommendations, I'm going to let you in on an Ancient American Suburban secret: The "one size fits all" approach is not, in fact, not one size fits all and you can, in fact, put 2 or even 3 bins worth of cardboard out at a time and the recycling/garbage people will gladly crush it all together as if it were one.

[Rossami]

I usually try to be supportive of Reason authors, especially relatively new ones, but this article is just stupid. You can't be bothered to knock down boxes and put them out for the garbage? Then you complain about the garbage piling up? You need to call the Hoarders people, not whine that 'Amazon and covid made me do it'.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Control Your Cardboard, Control Your Life

Change into a 9-year-old Hindu boy and leave your wife?
🙂
😉

[Dillinger]

bro take out the trash. the missus will think you're manly.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

So I think I can scratch Mike Riggs off my "people to take with you into the Zombie apocalypse" list.

[Dillinger]

provisions ... for the horde.

[gagow1]

My Companion mother makes 55 bucks an hour on the PC(Personal PC). She has been out of w0rk for quite some time however last month her check was 11,000 bucks only w0rking on the PC(Personal PC) for 9 hours per day.

OPEN>>>>>>bitecoinsallar12.COM

[mad.casual]

Not for nothing, but do you remember the George Utley character, The Caretaker, from Newhart?

[Public Entelectual]

All Mike needs is a post box sized Jotul wood stove . They're also great for disposing of unread copies of Fahrenheit 451.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

You get less cardboard if you actually go to a store instead of ordering by Amazon all the time.

[Jeb Kerman]

Cardboard is always needed at the local rifle and pistol range so we can staple paper targets to the target frames.

[Don't look at me!]

Scissors?
WTF kind of idiot is this?

[Jeff Mason]

Flatten out the boxes, roll them into to logs, tie them with wire, and burn them in you fireplace.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Coat them with parrafin and they are all-weather logs as well. As for the fireplace, that might create dangerous creosote build-up, so save them for the outdoor firepit or charcoal grill instead.

[NOYB2]

Ah, the journalism class.

It takes about 10 seconds to break down a cardboard box with a box cutter. They are still legal, you know.

Scissors are for craft projects and fingernails, not for breaking down boxes.

[CE]

Is it really better for the environment for everyone to have Amazon and UPS deliver all those boxes on trucks directly to their doorstep? People used to go to town once in a while and buy what they needed. Stuff was distributed centrally and you didn't have to mess with so many boxes.

[AltheDago]

A rechargeable cardboard cutter from Amazon makes short work of any cardboard I've used it on. It's easier and safer than a box knife, too.

But the simple solution is to break the damn box down as soon as you empty it, cut it to size, if necessary, and put it in the recycling bin. The average box takes less than a minute to flatten. Just how busy do you think you are?