[jimandpj]

I have a nearly inexhaustible source of corrugated cardboard.

I have a nearly inexhaustible need for bedding and mulch.

I have a nearly exhausted amount of patience for using a boxcutter or utility knife.

I have a borrowed gas-powered chipper shredder.

You may already have guessed where I'm going with this...

Has anyone tried rolling up the corrugated into say, 2" diameter 'logs' and running them through a chipper shredder?

If it wasn't borrowed I'd have tried it myself already, but I'm concerned about jamming. Any experience?

Jim

 

[Anchor]

Jim, I would think that if that chipper can handle trash wood, it should handle cardboard. I'd be kinda careful about it being wet, though. JMHO

--Joe..

 

[edcopp]

I am just way too lazy to do it that way. I would spread the cardboard out where I wanted mulch to be, then let mother nature dissolve it in a year or so. If I wanted to help I would add water now and then. Save energy and fuel, return the shredder.

 

[daytrader]

Heck, I would go sell the card board for scrap. Buy good hard wood mulch.

I do not see why the chipper could not take the card board. Just why? Is there a reason you need it for mulch?

If I had a endless supply of card board I would sell if for scrap.

 

[PD-Riverman]

I have a nearly inexhaustible source of corrugated cardboard.

I have a nearly inexhaustible need for bedding and mulch.

I have a nearly exhausted amount of patience for using a boxcutter or utility knife.

I have a borrowed gas-powered chipper shredder.

You may already have guessed where I'm going with this...

Has anyone tried rolling up the corrugated into say, 2" diameter 'logs' and running them through a chipper shredder?

If it wasn't borrowed I'd have tried it myself already, but I'm concerned about jamming. Any experience?

Jim

Yes it works------but it works "Better" to have it cut in a few inch wide strips, even though I usually stack several strips on top of each other and feed it into my Chipper Shredder.

 

[Windy in Kansas]

I have never tried to roll cardboard for running though the chipper side of my chipper/shredder. I do run it through the shredder side with moderate success. It doesn't like to feed real well in my experience and will shred the leading edge rather than continuing to pull the entire piece into it.

I'm sure a coarser screen would work a lot better than the one that came with my unit too.

 

[sugarbush]

ahhh....try it, it will not hurt the machine.....you might when you take it apart to unjam it.......I would run a little cardboard and then a little brush to keep it cleaned out.

 

[stonykill]

we use our small (10hp) chipper shredder all the time. Never tried, or thought of trying cardboard, but my experience with these little chipper shredders is its going to be slow going without plugging it up. I've used ours with last years lawn clippings, mixed with my inexaustable amount of wood planer shavings,all out of the mulch pile, it worked, but I needed to keep wood around to run through it to keep it from plugging, and it still plugged alot. Made fine mulch though! If you have the chipper anyway, gather together all the dead twigs and better yet bark that you can ( i do this all the time as I am gathering firewood), and mulch the wood and bark, using the cardboard as a base for the mulch. The cardboard will rot faster this way. With that said, corrogated cardboard is full of poisons, I wouldn't use it around anything I was going to eat.

I'm not sure what you have for land, but gather up dead branches, birch rots real fast and shreds easy. Go to state land where firewood is available and gather your twigs, look on craigslist for free branches (don't laugh I've seen people offer them) ask your nieghbors and the mailman if they know of any brush piles or firewood guys who have bark or trigs for grinding. The rural mailman knows who has what. You'll be much happier with wood mulch than nasty cardboard.

 

[jimandpj]

Thanks for all of the input!

Jim

 

[edcopp]

Heck, I would go sell the card board for scrap. Buy good hard wood mulch.

I do not see why the chipper could not take the card board. Just why? Is there a reason you need it for mulch?

If I had a endless supply of card board I would sell if for scrap.

Some of us are so far out in the boonies that nobody wants to haul cardboard. In my town one grocery store accumulates semi loads and sends it off. Most people can't afford the investment in the baler to accumulate a load. It's about 80 miles to a purchaser and anything less than a semi load is not pprofitable. Some recycling centers will take it if you bring it to them for free. Our multi county recycling system won't even take the stuff.

The next option is to burn it, or compost it.

Bear in mind that one persons "endless supply" might be 200# per week.

 

[daytrader]

You are right. In the boonies one would be lucky to get $20 a ton for it. In the city 50-70 a ton.

It really isn't worth it in small loads.

If you have a better use for it. Better power to ya. I would think worms would be a interesting area to look into. Folks say you can make money with them.

I have a very small contraption used for worms. Just for fishing and such.

Maybe you could farm worms for fishing or something. 200 pounds a week. Is alot of card board to get rid of. You seem to have a plan to put it to use.

When you said endless supply. I pictured broken down galords in stacks and such.

Around here card board is like aluminum cans. Everyone and their brother picks them/it up off the side of the roads and out of dumptsers to scape.

Even the large bales that the department stores have setting out back get stollen. These things weight like 1500 pounds yet they some how steel them for what 40 bucks. Dosn't seem worth it.