[munk-a]

Recycling is great but it's the least effective of the trio of actions if you recall the triangle of arrows: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" - Reducing is the best option but by the time goods leave a factory they're already plastered in packaging. While costco can work with suppliers to reduce packaging (and I think it's pretty clear they do by buying special bulk sized options) - there's a decent chunk of material flowing into their locations. That leaves two options, recycle and reuse - if we were to immediately recycle we'd spend a lot of energy recovering the raw material from the box and reforming it to a new good, before we do that if we can get another use out of its current incarnation then that's awesome - we essentially get a brand new box for "free" because we're not spending energy to break it down, remold it, repaint it and do other crap. And then it goes home to the customer - this may vary based on location but where I am in Canada there are extremely accessible recycling curbside pickup options, so I'd wager that a fair majority of those boxes end up getting reused anyways.

And sure, there's a cynical view you can take on how much money the company is saving but hey - if they're saving that money while reducing their environmental impact all props to them.