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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: 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.