When recycling boxes, it is best practice to flatten them beforehand. However, some boxes can be quite difficult to flatten, and I’d like to share a simple technique I have come up with to do it.

A bit of background: in my apartment block, I have designated myself the role of ‘recycling angel’. It was a natural progression from my previous job in Perth, where at that community centre I seemed to be the one who had the clearest idea of what should go in the yellow bin and what shouldn’t, making me the guy (‘angel’) who ended up sorting the trash.

With Christmas 2025 a few weeks to go, recently at my apartment’s collective recycling tubs I have noticed many cardboard gift boxes come in. And despite clear instructions that ‘boxes must be flattened’, it seems that Christmas revelry has diminished some people’s ability to see/read. When recycled boxes aren’t flattened at Christmas time, the tubs can’t shut, and in Melbourne’s southern summer, this invites nasties into the recycling tub (let’s face it, people who recycle beer cans tend not to rinse them, leaving traces of beer for ants and slugs to enjoy in their own Christmas revelry).

To be fair, some boxes are quite difficult to flatten. Most delivery packaging are easy to flatten: the weak spot is the packing tape holding it all together. Slash your house keys through this tape, and Bob’s your uncle. However, gift boxes can be sturdily built, and thus quite difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible, to flatten. This is particularly true of gift boxes from luxury brands such as Gucci, Chanel and Tiffany & Co. They’re premium brands, so the goods come in premium sturdy boxes that are hard to flatten.

The technique I came up with is most applicable to these luxury brand boxes. I reflected that with ordinary packing boxes, without thinking we all usually go for the weak spot first: the packing tape. A Gucci box however is not held together by packing tape, it is very sturdy. But I thought that it must have a weak spot. After some experimenting, I found that the weak spots in these sturdy luxury boxes are the corner edges, they are the easiest part to pry apart and break.

Having said that, it still took quite a lot of force to pry the sides and break these corner edges. I therefore refined my Gucci box flattening technique by using my foot and body weight. Prying apart the luxury box corner edges was difficult with my arms, but it was easier to stand on it, putting my whole body weight on the sides of the box, with one foot on one side, and the other foot on another side.

This Gucci box flattening technique is best illustrated with this video:

So as this 2025 Silly Season continues and Christmas gift boxes keep rolling into the rubbish room of my apartment block, I’ll be out there doing my small part as the self-appointed apartment recycling angel, jumping, prying, and flattening with festive determination. If you ever find yourself staring down a particularly stubborn box, remember: every box has a weak spot, even the poshest of them. And with a bit of technique (i.e. a well-placed foot or two), we can all help keep our recycling bins & tubs tidy and bug-free.