This story has been corrected.
A major Iowa newspaper has explored how hammered recyclables markets forced Mid America Recycling to send paper to landfills this year.
Mick Barry, president of Mid America Recycling, told The Des Moines Register his company shipped about 20 tons of paper per day to landfills. Barry said the landfilling occurred from February 2018 through early May 2018. The company did so because it couldn’t find domestic markets for the material, he said.
The article notes how China’s actions have led to a glut of domestic material looking for a home. Meanwhile, Midwest paper mills found they could acquire recovered paper from nearby cities and clean it up at less cost than sourcing high-quality material from Mid America Recycling, Barry said.
Because of a newspaper source error, Resource Recycling published the wrong time frame for paper landfilling. The article has been corrected to show the landfilling occurred from February through early May.
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