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Important information about waste, recycling and sustainable materials management from around the world.
RECYCLING NEWS FROM OTHER CITIES AND STATES
WASTE HAULERS: The Square Peg In The Circular Economy
May 2021, By Liza Tucker, Consumer Watchdog
This investigative report focuses on highlighting corruption in the waste industry.
Governor Gavin Newsom has called for a circular economy that slashes waste while extracting maximum value by reusing or remanufacturing as much of it as possible. A circular economy cuts greenhouse gases and toxic emissions. It helps companies meet new mandates on recycled content and reduces demand for products made from scratch. It also supports recycling and manufacturing jobs in state.
California’s once-vaunted recycling program—passed into law in 1986—is its Bottle Bill. That bill established a recycling system for billions of soda, water, juice and beer containers that today carry a California Redemption Value (CRV) of a nickel or a dime that is supposed to be refundable. Today, the program is collapsing because of a deck that waste haulers and supermarkets stacked against it.
This investigative report examines the role of waste haulers and their surrogates in knocking California from its leadership position among ten bottle deposit states into third-to-last place when it comes to consumer redemption rates. Waste haulers and their lobbyists are the square peg dirtying up Newsom’s circular vision. They do this via contamination of the empties they collect to recycle and contamination of the political process.
More and More, America’s Recyclable Plastic Is Being Burned, Not Recycled
March 12, 2019 By Matt Hickman, MNN
Incineration is a stop-gap solution after the Chinese ban on foreign waste.
Americans dutifully separate, sort and haul recyclables to the curb under the assumption that our bottles, cans and accumulated junk mail will avoid being landfilled and instead go somewhere to become something new.
And that somewhere has primarily been China, which has long accepted recyclables — plastics being the most prized — from the United States and other countries with enthusiastically open arms.
For decades, China couldn’t get enough of our precious plastic trash, which was transformed into new consumer products and packaging and sent back our way. In 2016 alone, Chinese manufacturers imported a staggering 7.3 million metric tons of recovered plastic from the U.S. and other waste-exporting nations. In total, roughly 70 percent of all plastic collected for recycling in the U.S. was once shipped to China for processing.
This all changed at the beginning of 2018 when the Chinese government implemented National Sword, a globally disruptive policy that’s seen the once-steady flow of recyclable waste into the country slow to a mere trickle — if even that — as China’s plastic imports have fallen by an astounding 99 percent.
The full text of the article can be found at Mother Nature Network.
What happens to recycling after it leaves our homes?
March 11, 2019, by Kaila White, Arizona Republic
Tammy Gabel is about as passionate about recycling as is possible.
“When I first moved to Arizona – I grew up in California – I moved to Yuma, and you couldn’t recycle in Yuma at that time, and so I would take like bags full of bottles to my dad to recycle in California.”
Despite being so dedicated to the cause, Gabel said there is a lot she still doesn’t know about recycling.
Listen to the podcast at AZCentral.com
Recycling Can’t Fix What Really Ails Us
March 9, 2019, by YVONNE ABRAHAM, The Boston Globe
Recycling can’t fix what really ails us.
Filling those blue bins is a comfort for those of us who panic at rising seas and dying reefs. We can’t control the head-in-the-tar-sanders determined to fry us, but at least we’re doing our part to keep reusable trash out of landfills and plastic ocean gyres.
Full text of the article may be found in The Boston Globe.
AMERICANS ARE CONSUMING MORE AND MORE STUFF. NOW THAT OTHER COUNTRIES WON’T TAKE OUR PAPERS AND PLASTICS, THEY’RE ENDING UP IN THE TRASH.
March 5, 2019, ALANA SEMUELS, The Atlantic
After decades of earnest public-information campaigns, Americans are finally recycling. Airports, malls, schools, and office buildings across the country have bins for plastic bottles, aluminum cans and newspapers. In some cities, you can be fined if inspectors discover that you haven’t recycled appropriately.
But now much of that carefully sorted recycling is ending up in the trash.
Full text of the article may be found in The Atlantic.
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