How to Use wastepaper in a Sentence

wastepaper

noun
  • Mill’s maid thought the manuscript was wastepaper and threw it into the fire.
    — John D. Hagen, National Review, 20 Aug. 2020
  • The wastepaper baskets were filled with real scraps of newspaper.
    — Andreas Wiseman, Deadline, 17 May 2026
  • Or perhaps the checks were simply Dickie’s mistakes, screwed up and thrown in the wastepaper basket.
    — Tessa Hadley, The New Yorker, 26 July 2021
  • Batman and Spiderman action figure toys lie in a wastepaper basket next to the boy.
    — Fox News, 8 May 2020
  • No incriminating diary pages crammed in the wastepaper basket, just the cardboard packaging for some lip gloss.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Not to mention the widespread habit of tossing used toilet paper into wastepaper baskets to spare the strain on many homes’ aged and insufficient plumbing.
    — Washington Post, 1 Jan. 2020
  • With no market for the wastepaper and plastic in their blue bins, some communities scaled back or suspended curbside recycling programs.
    — Mary Esch, The Seattle Times, 19 May 2019
  • Instead of returning to China empty, shipping containers were filled with refuse, bales of plastic bottles, cardboard and wastepaper.
    — Emily Chasan, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2019
  • The black-and-white picture depicts a young boy sitting on the floor playing with a nurse superhero toy, as Batman and Spiderman toy figures lie in a wastepaper basket next to him.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 1 July 2020
  • The black-and-white picture depicts a young boy sitting on the floor playing with a nurse superhero toy, as Batman and Spiderman toy figures lie in a wastepaper basket next to him.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 23 Mar. 2021
  • In the middle of his presentation, the young trainee, without pausing the video, discreetly crouched behind his podium to throw up into a wastepaper bin he’d presumably positioned there for this very reason.
    — Literary Hub, 6 Aug. 2025
  • Before presenting the first award of the night, the duo performed an elaborate bit about sanitizing the envelope with the winner’s name in it, which included setting fire to it in a wastepaper basket to burn off the germs.
    — Danielle Turchiano, chicagotribune.com, 20 Sep. 2020
  • This includes beverage containers, wrappers, wastepaper and packaging.
    — Veronica Fernandez-Alvarado april 22, Sacbee.com, 22 Apr. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'wastepaper.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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