For many years, China and other countries have been accepting most of America’s unsorted recycling material (paper, plastic, etc.) for processing and handling. However, China and these various countries have recently stopped accepting a bulk of our materials. The commodities values have decreased dramatically resulting in other countries being much more selective in what they will and will not except for further processing.
Though we are so proud of our eco-friendly, recyclable advancements in packaging materials here in the United States, China and other countries strict enforcement of selective material acceptance is now clearly shedding light on the weakness in our recyclable/reusable packaging model.
Our inability to externalize the cost of processing these materials to other countries has resulted in the United States having to incur the costly expense to handle in-house. In California, one of the biggest areas that cost is affecting are our bottles & cans redemption programs—we are losing these redemption and recycling centers at an alarming rate. Over the last three years, in fact, California has lost almost 1800 recycling centers and only gained approximately 800 recycling centers.
Since we no longer have the ability to outsource our material, we are having to incur all the second-hand processing ourselves. This means we are sorting material and disposing of the excess or remaining waste at a much higher cost than ever before.
Though this all sounds very “doomsday”, and many Californians will be facing rate increases, this crisis presents an opportunity for consumers to learn more about recycling practices and play their part in truly reducing, reusing, and recovering! If you have questions on how you can play a more impactful role in salvaging recycling efforts, give us a call today. (844) 88-TAKE2 or (844) 888-2532