Major municipalities plan substantial changes to their recycling programs, and the loss of glass recycling has financial ripple effects for a small municipal program in Pennsylvania.
When it made landfall on Aug. 25, Hurricane Harvey became the wettest tropical cyclone to ever hit the U.S., dumping more than five feet of water on Houston. The resulting floods have impacted the recycling industry in multiple ways, driving up prices for virgin plastics, hampering freight systems and halting curbside collections.
One report indicates that buyers in China are desperately seeking domestic sources of recovered paper. Meanwhile, low-value plastics are flooding the European market, but processors there have limited ability to handle those loads.Features from the August 2017 print edition:
- Buying in
- Community Spotlight: How one SoCal beach town takes on diversion challenges
- Data Corner: How the US and EU stack up on pricing
- In My Opinion: Bringing nuance to the numbers
- MRF of the Month: Eureka Recycling, Minneapolis
- Picking dignity
- Step by step
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The National Recycling Coalition made a handful of important announcements during the Resource Recycling Conference in Minneapolis last week.