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Aaron C. Davis writes in the Washington Post that recycling, "once a profitable business for cities and private employers alike," has become a "money-sucking enterprise." Almost every recycling facility in the country is running in the red and recyclers say that more than 2,000 municipalities are paying to dispose of their recyclables instead of the other way around. "If people feel that recycling is important — and I think they do, increasingly — then we are talking about a nationwide crisis," says David Steiner, chief executive of Waste Management, the nation's largest recycler.
The problem with recycling is that a storm of falling oil prices, a strong dollar and a weakened economy in China have sent prices for American recyclables plummeting worldwide. Trying to encourage conservation, progressive lawmakers and environmentalists have made matters worse. By pushing to increase recycling rates with bigger and bigger bins — while demanding almost no sorting by consumers — the recycling stream has become increasingly polluted and less valuable, imperilling the economics of the whole system. "We kind of got everyone thinking that recycling was free," says Bill Moore. "It's never really been free, and in fact, it's getting more expensive."
One big problem is that China doesn't want to buy our garbage any more. In the past China had sent so many consumer goods to the United States that all the shipping containers were coming back empty. So US companies began stuffing the return-trip containers with recycled cardboard boxes, waste paper and other scrap. China could, in turn, harvest the raw materials. Everyone won. But China has launched "Operation Green Fence" — a policy to prohibit the import of unwashed post-consumer plastics and other "contaminated" waste shipments. In China, containerboard, a common packaging product from recycled American paper, is trading at just over $400 a metric ton, down from nearly $1,000 in 2010. China also needs less recycled newsprint; the last paper mill in Shanghai closed this year. "If the materials we are exporting are so contaminated that they are being rejected by those we sell to," says Valerie Androutsopoulos, "maybe it's time to take another look at dual stream recycling."
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Marneus68 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @10:42AM
> progressive lawmakers and environmentalists have made matters worse [by] demanding almost no sorting by consumers
Why am I not surprised here? It's sad really because the whole recycling thing was one of the point that made me agree with "progressives". The fact that it turned out being a profitable business for a while made it pick up steam for a while and now it's all over.
Over here in Europe (or at least in France, where I live) companies in the field of recycling have huge incentives, but the consumer is urged to do a lot of sorting. Besides the basic Trash/Glass/Not Glass distinction we had, we sometimes have distinctions between metal, carboard, glass and plastic in certain regions. This requires work for the end user but it's seen as being a civic duty, as I think it should be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:09PM
Besides the basic Trash/Glass/Not Glass
The thing is I have basically paper/metal/glass/plastic.
The glass part is *maybe* a jar or two a week. There is a hell of a lot more paper. The metal comes from pop cans which I am trying to cut out of my life. So guess what ends up in my recycling? Mostly paper. Pretty low stock paper at that too. Most of it is cardboard that has been printed on in some way. Which means the other end has to bleach it out to use it. I have considered going to a local dude for milk. Just to get glass containers.
Paper and glass is probably the worst to recycle. As each time you use it the fibers get shorter. Yet we have the most of it. The problem is upstream in our packaging. Very little of it is designed to be reused. Plastic is a pain because there are a few dozen different types and some of them do not mix.
Then there is the 'can I?' moments. There is tons of stuff that may or may not be allowed in your bin. But you are not sure. So you either recycle it and they toss it. Or you bin it and it possibly could have been reused.
I do recycle but it is a pain. Were I currently live we have always had 2 stream. One year a new dude decided just 'punish' everyone who did not put the right things in. He left the whole recycle bin behind and only took the bins that were 'right'. Overnight recycling went to near 0 in this area. They had to goto machine pickup to get the rate high again.
I always figured the most they made was from the metal anyway. Glass/plastic/paper are pretty close to worthless.
(Score: 4, Informative) by throwaway28 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @01:23PM
I always figured the most they made was from the metal anyway. Glass/plastic/paper are pretty close to worthless.
When I toured a boston-area recycling sorting facility (casella) a year ago, they said that while aluminum was resold for 1500 dollars / ton; and paper was almost worthless (40 dollars / ton); they made most of their money selling paper because of the high volume. It takes lotsa aluminum cans, to make a ton.
And crushed glass, was indeed worthless -- they needed to pay to get rid of it (maybe 15 dollars / ton). But less worthless than pure trash (disposal cost 90 dollars / ton).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:12PM
You can compost paper. Mix it with vegetable peels and organics, through in a container of red worms you can get at a nursery, and they'll turn it into light, fluffy potting soil in a couple of months. I do that for my garden and stuff planted in it grows faster than with MiracleGro.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:37PM
That bit sounded crazy to me as well. Sounds more like sorting is dying. No wonder then if nobody wants your mixed waste...
Yes, there will always be assholes who refuse to sort their trash or even sabotage the effort on purpose. But that's a small minority. It's really not that hard. And it's kinda rewarding to know you're doing your little bit.
I sort my waste into glass, metal, paper and cardboard and rubbish tip. And electric and hazardous. No sweat.
If in certain areas or at first extra incentives are needed, perhaps there could be a pledge system where it would get expensive to not sort your stuff. Perhaps waste should be taxed. On the other hand the packaging protects the products, so zero packaging would not be a good solution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:20PM
Why would anyone bother sorting their waste, pay to have it removed, and then watch the company that takes it away try to make a profit on it. Even after that, you have to pay for garbage pickup for whatever they wont take. That certainly does not feel like a civic duty.
When recyclers stop charging for pickup, more people will care. It takes both time and money to recycle on top of garbage pickup when it only takes money to toss it in the trash bin. Clearly one is superior for anyone that works full time or has a family, and it isn't working for a recycler's attempt at profit.
(Score: 1) by dusty monkey on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:32AM
Over here in Europe (or at least in France, where I live) companies in the field of recycling have huge incentives, but the consumer is urged to do a lot of sorting.
The thing is that you guys in Europe have issues with the amount of unused land thats available. In countries like the U.S. there is so much unused land that worrying about running out of it is like worrying that the planet will run out of metal because of all the satellites that we put into space.
Also, when we "fill up" landfills we turn them into parks and golf courses.
So the arguments that are left are:
1) reducing the rate of resource depletion
2) avoiding harmful pollutions
As far as (1) this sort of recycling isnt the responsibility of anyone anywhere because very little is actually made with rare resources (because rare = expensive.) Paper and aluminum arent even close to being in danger of being depleted by any stretch of the imagination. The plastic recycling is only shallowly justified since the amount of petrochemicals (the primary resource that is being depleted) used to make plastic is so vastly dwarfed by the primary uses of petrochemicals.
The only recycling that seems to make any sense from a non-business perspective is that which focuses on (2) such as battery recycling. It isnt because we are running out of the resources needed to make batteries, or places to dispose of them, but instead its because they are highly toxic and shouldn't be buried in arbitrary locations.
So quite frankly I'm fine if nearly all recycling was entirely handled by for-profit businesses which purchase garbage with an aim to sift through it for what they can use. In those cases where its not profitable, just don't do it. There is an extremely absurd amount of land on this earth to dump paper, metal, and plastic. Its a billion-years-from-now problem.
- when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil - stop supporting evil -