I worked at a supermarket in the late 70's as my high-school job, and we didn't compress + band the cardboard boxes -- we burned them in an incinerator out back. Every so often it needed to have the ash cleaned out, so the male employees would take turns with a shovel and the ash buckets. You'd blow grey mucous out your nose for a couple of days afterwards, because masks were for sissies.

Not-so-fun story time: The stock guys left a can of Lysol aerosol in one of the boxes, and when I tossed it in the resulting fireball burned some of my hair off. Occupational safety? What's that?