by Kirsten Delamarter

When the Kentucky Government Recycling Section (KGRS) received nearly 3,500 bankers boxes of documents for disposal earlier this year, Environmental Scientist Advisor Brian Bentley and his colleagues saw an opportunity to make a difference.

Sure, the boxes could be recycled, Bentley thought, but they could also be reused.

“That started me looking around at different places that distributed food to the needy or underserved,” said Bentley, who then began calling local food pantries. “They were just elated that we were going to be able to donate some boxes that are good and stable.”

Since then, KGRS has delivered the emptied boxes to food pantries in Franklin, Anderson, Woodford, Spencer and Fayette counties.

It’s not unusual for KGRS to receive so many boxes, or even for it to donate those boxes to schools or other agencies that can reuse them. KGRS, within the Division of Waste Management, processes the more than 1.5 million poundsof wastepaper and cardboard generated by state government agencies each year.

However, it is rare for KGRS to receive such a large quantity of bankers boxes with lids and handles — perfect for transporting produce and other food items.

Recently, KGRS employees delivered 375 bankers boxes to FoodChain, a non-profit organization in Lexington.

“We do meal distribution three days a week, and then we do home delivery of meals and groceries to over 150 households in Lexington,” FoodChain Co-Executive Director Leandra Forman said. “And every bit of that food is packed directly into boxes.”

In total, FoodChain uses more than 700 boxes a week. Though they encourage families to return boxes for reuse, they also rely on donations from LexMark and purchase additional boxes to ensure there will be enough.

“These boxes will not last long here,” Forman said. “They will be going out as early as tomorrow, packed full of some awesome Kentucky-grown goodness in our Friday grocery box.”

If the boxes had not been donated, Bentley said, they would have been baled and sold to a mill that can turn those boxes into new products. The price of old corrugated cardboard containers, known as OCC in the recycling industry, is about $60 per ton. The bankers boxes would have fetched a little over $60 for KGRS.

“To bale those up rather than reuse them, to me, doesn’t make sense if these places can use them,” Bentley said.

Although all the bankers boxes have been distributed, Bentley is in talks with food pantries to see if they can make use of other types of boxes that come through KGRS. Most of the boxes KGRS receives are cubic foot boxes, which have interlocking flaps at the top and bottom.

KGRS receives boxes of records from the State Records Center within Kentucky Department for Library and Archives, which stores roughly 300,000 boxes of records for government agencies across the Commonwealth, Bentley said. Once the retention dates expire and the documents can legally be disposed of, KGRS will shred them according to National Association for Information Destruction standards, leaving the boxes behind.

“I’ve got to make sure that it’s something that they can hold the weight of the food,” Bentley said. “But if that’s the case, then we’re going to be getting a lot of boxes here pretty soon.”

For more information about the Kentucky Government Recycling Section, visit eec.ky.gov.