The World is being Forced to Rethink Recycling

Maybe not since Plato wrote about the value of reusing waste in the fourth century BC has recycling undergone the wide fluctuation, good and bad, that we are seeing right now. Today, the world has been forced to rethink its approach to waste. China is driving the change in recycling. Most recently, China imposed a 25% tariff on U.S. scrap aluminum. The import has resulted in a more than 15% drop in the price of mixed aluminum scrap this past month to 60 cents per pound, an amount that exceeds the profit margin for processors. This is against a backdrop of China last July 18 banned the imports of 24 varieties of solid waste, including types of plastic and unsorted paper. And then last month China extended the ban to dozens more types of recyclable materials, including steel waste, used auto parts and old ships. The resultant chaos in the recycling market is because China is the largest buyer of much of the recycled material the U.S. exports. Last year, China imported 13 million…

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