What To Do With Leftover Cardboard Sheets In Your Board Game

Planning to recycle those leftover cardboard sheets from your shiny new board game? Put them to better use with this one simple trick!

We’ve all been through it. You tear off the plastic from your brand new copy of Imhotep, or Concordia, or Stone Age. You spend a few glorious minutes punching out all of the pieces from those cardboard sheets and then you’re left with a pile of worthless cardboard.

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You’re probably thinking of throwing them away…or at least recycling them. But there’s a better option!

Those cardboard sheets, or sprues as they’re called in the industry, take up quite a lot of space in the box, usually just enough to keep the pieces underneath from moving around during shipping. But when you take those sheets out and throw them away, you’re left with a significant gap between the top of the components and the top of the box. In some cases up to a quarter inch or more!

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The solution? Don’t get rid of them, put them to permanent use by putting them UNDER the game insert! Check out my copy of World’s Fair 1893. It’s a great game and comes with a lot of cardboard because Alex Kevern is a cardboard wizard! But that leaves nearly a half inch gap. After putting the cardboard under the insert, the box is nearly flush again.

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Save the board games, save your hair, save the planet and reuse those cardboard sheets!

About the author

Andy Matthews

Founder of Meeple Mountain, editor in chief of MeepleMountain.com, and software engineer. Father of 4, husband to 1, lover of games, books, and movies, and all around nice guy. I run Nashville Game Night, and Nashville Tabletop Day.

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