What's the price difference between OCC (old corrugated cardboard) and mixed office paper?
Short answer: OCC (corrugated cardboard boxes) and mixed office paper are priced on entirely different scales because they go to different end uses — OCC gets repulped mostly into new cardboard and packaging, while sorted office paper (especially higher grades like white ledger) can go into higher-value paper products, often commanding a different price per tonne depending on sorting quality.
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Corrugated cardboard is made from a coarser, longer fiber suited to packaging strength, while office paper is typically a finer fiber that can be processed into higher-grade paper products if it’s clean and well-sorted. That difference in downstream use is what drives different pricing, not just supply and demand for “paper” generically.
Why sorting quality matters so much for office paper
Mixed, unsorted office paper — mixed with envelopes, colored paper, and various weights — is worth considerably less than a genuinely sorted, single-grade batch like white ledger, since sorting is exactly the labor a buyer would otherwise have to do themselves.
What this means practically
If you’re generating both cardboard and office paper waste, keeping them in separate bins from the start avoids the value loss of a mixed “paper” load and lets each stream get priced against its actual correct market.
How ScrapTrade Makes This Easier
Listing OCC and sorted office paper separately on ScrapTrade lets buyers who specifically want one or the other bid appropriately, rather than defaulting to a blended, conservative “mixed paper” rate.
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