This is hardly a new story, but every so often, the liberal media shine a light on it: how some of the junk that is supposedly “recycled” is actually thrown in the trash.
In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in dozens of American cities and towns – including several in Oregon – have gone to landfills.
Recycling is uneconomical, in part because small impurities in materials to be recycled can make such materials useless.
“There are some states and some markets where mixed paper is at a negative value,” said Brent Bell, vice president of recycling at Waste Management, which handles 10 million tons of recycling per year.
In the Pacific Northwest, Republic has diverted more than 2,000 tons of paper to landfills since the Chinese ban [on imported paper] came into effect, Mr. Keller said. The company has been unable to move that material to a market “at any price or cost,” he said.
Theresa Byrne, who lives in Salem, Ore., said the city took too long to inform residents that most plastics and egg and milk cartons were now considered garbage. “I was angry,” she said. “I believe in recycling.”
That was Salem’s mistake: informing residents that recycling wasn’t happening. Instead, the town should have done what Grant’s Pass, Oregon did: tell residents they are still recycling but secretly put everything in a landfill like ordinary trash.
See the full story here.
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