This article appeared in the February 2021 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.   As recycling markets have been thrown into turmoil in recent years due to China's import shifts, the North American industry has seen facilities close, programs shorten acceptable-material lists and major tonnages of collected paper and plastic head to landfill. It's clear local...

Businesses engaged in materials recovery tend to be overwhelmingly white at the upper levels of management. Here's a look at the scope of the issue and some initial efforts to bring more people of color to executive roles.

A packaging industry group that has traditionally opposed mandated producer funding of recycling may be ready to support that type of legislation, according to the organization's leader. Dan Felton, executive director of packaging stakeholder group AMERIPEN, said his organization's recycling-policy position evolved significantly over the course of 2019 and 2020. He noted that by October of last year, AMERIPEN had...

A packaging industry group that has traditionally opposed mandated producer funding of recycling may be ready to support that type of legislation, according to the organization's leader. Dan Felton, executive director of packaging stakeholder group AMERIPEN, said his organization's recycling-policy position evolved significantly over the course of 2019 and 2020. He noted that by October of last year, AMERIPEN had...

Many companies in the ITAD sector are searching for the best way to expand into international markets. For Ingram Micro, the playbook is clear: Follow the flow of new hardware. Last month, Ingram Micro announced it had opened an IT asset disposition operation in Mexico City, the company's fourth such site in Latin America (operations were already active in Brazil,...

This story originally appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of Plastics Recycling Update. Subscribe today for access to all print content. At this point, no informed person can honestly deny the world’s plastic waste issue. Researchers have delivered sobering statistics about the amount of plastics ending up in waterways. Media outlets have offered a regular stream of stories and imagery, mobilizing consumers...

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of E-Scrap News. Subscribe today for access to all print content.   The business of IT asset disposition is now a huge part of the electronics recovery ecosystem. As corporations, institutions and other organizations outside the residential realm have come to understand the value of the material they generate – and the risks...

Perhaps the ultimate white privilege is simply being able to look away. I am a white middle-class male, brought up in a white middle-class suburb in New England. I was educated early on about the importance of the civil rights movement. I was exposed to and moved by the powerful words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And I’ve been...

This article appeared in the September 2020 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content. Harry Hayes’ journey to the top of Houston’s solid waste department in many ways began over 40 years ago, when he confronted fears about being the only Black kid in French class. Hayes, in the early 1970s, was set to enter seventh grade...

With export scandals, CRT stockpiles and more, the electronics recycling industry has suffered its share of image bruises. A short film being launched by an ERP vendor, however, casts a far more pleasant glow on the business of electronics recovery. "Silicon Mountain" is a 26-minute documentary from enterprise resource planning software provider The Vested Group that is being released online...