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The perfect pizza box
A new invention, Green Box, makes enjoying delivery pizza at home a lot less cumbersome and a lot less wasteful.
Wed, May 27 2009 at 9:47 PM
Here’s a brilliant concept that I’m shocked hasn’t been a staple of the pizza delivery industry for years now: a recyclable pizza box that transforms into tableware and storage for leftovers.
Before I describe this new invention, Green Box, a reminder of how wasteful pizza delivery is:
We all know that pizza delivery is big business. I can't find exact numbers that capture the immensity of this cultural, culinary fixture but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that we all have a little red sauce and mozzarella cheese coursing through our veins. Pizza joints are constantly trying to out-innovate each other with things like real-time online delivery tracking, bowls made out of pizza dough, and "natural” alternatives. But the one thing that’s been neglected: those cumbersome cardboard pizza boxes that often can’t be recycled and are usually just tossed along with the household trash.
Even though I usually pick up my pies rather than have them delivered (I live above a pizzeria), I’m still stuck with the blasted boxes. If I’m munching by myself I don’t use a plate but if I have guests, I provide them. They usually aren’t used. I wash them anyway making the whole ritual a water-wasting hassle.
In terms of storing leftovers, trying to shove a pizza box into a refrigerator ain’t easy and if there aren’t leftovers my boxes sadly go sadly straight down to the trash. All and all, a terribly inefficient, wasteful dining experience no matter how you slice it.
This is why Green Box is so genius. Instead of tossing it, this clever redesign of the traditional piece box lets you use the top of the box as four serving plates while the bottom can be configured into a nicely sized storage container for leftovers. The box itself is made from 100 percent recycled content (most pizza boxes are made from 60 percent recycled content) and can be recycled.
Pizza lovers, what do you think?
Via [dornob]
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I haven't seen the word 'compostable' used in this story or comments. In Seattle, greased pizza boxes can be put into the compostable (yard) waste bin and sent for composting. In addition there is one local (I think they are local) pizza chain which is good about sending such material for composting and is willing to take back soiled boxes. But they ARE compostable and in my book, that's as good as recyclable.
The headline for this article is a bit misleading. While this is an ingenious design solution for the issue of placing leftovers into an already cramped refrigerator, the grease residue issue is not addressed. As far as I can tell you can't recycle paper products of any kind that have food stains or residue on them.
I would say this is a reusable pizza box, but definitely not recyclable if recyclable implies that it is turned back into more paper products at the end of it's life.
Hey Erik,
Good catch. While it's made obvious that the box's clever design allows for reuse, whether or not it can be actually recycled because of grease/food residue is a bit unclear. Here's the deal according to the folks at Green Box:
"We now offer, as an option, an FDA approved, environmentally friendly, vegetable based coating that can be sprayed onto the liner of the box or added to the ‘wet’ recycling process making the box 100% RECYCLABLE!"
Now if we could just get all pizza companies to use these!!! The only problem I can think of is would most recycling places take this because it will have pizza grease on it?