Recycling paper & cardboard in your garden?

I did some brief research on the net but didn't find what I was looking for. Only one article about shredding and mixing in water, etc.

I have 5 acres out here and garden and live on only about one. The rest is left to the trees and what grows naturally.

I don't pay for garbage service so do a lot of sorting and composting. I compost the organics, recycle the plastics and glass and a neighbor takes away all the aluminum. The lower grade plastics such as foam trays and plastic grocery bags go back to Publix for handling. The rest of the much lower grade plastics, non-burnables are stored and dropped off at the dump or any construction dumpster I may be working at.

That leaves me with the burnables, paper and cardboards that I can't use in the birdcages or for anything else around the house. Pizza boxes, cereal boxes etc. Oh yes, and beer and soda boxes, junk mail flyers, old paid bills and envelopes,

We haven't been able to burn for the past couple months, too much wind and fire warnings and it got me to thinking about doing less burning.

Any ideas/tips about burying the burnables? If I do this, I suspect I should layer it with sand, since that is my primary earth matter out here and keep it away from my water supply, maybe down slope of the well.

How long would it take to degrade these items? What are the pros and cons? And would the degraded products be usable later as non-edible garden amendments?

Molly