Resource Recycling keeps you on top of critical industry trends and brings unparalleled analysis of the evolving materials stream, market turbulence, policy trends and more.
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Even as the vast majority of municipalities have not made changes to recycling service, the coronavirus impact has been felt in programs around the country. | VO IMAGES/Shutterstock
The global escalation of COVID-19 is hampering some North American recycling programs, impacting Chinese users of U.S. recovered fiber, constraining global shipping, denting stock prices and threatening an economic recession.
Boise’s EnergyBag program has explored a number of alternative processing options while awaiting Renewlogy’s upgrades. | Sean Pavone/Shutterstock
A program collecting hard-to-recycle plastics in Idaho’s largest city has been without a solid market for about a year since downstream outlet Renewlogy stopped accepting loads. After an equipment supply delay due to the coronavirus, the city now says this will continue at least through the summer.
CalRecycle is set to award nearly $16 million to six composting and anaerobic digestion projects. | Jan Vaclav Herodes/Shutterstock
Garden State lawmakers passed a food-waste reduction bill, an industry group released tips on starting waste reduction programs, and California is set to award millions for composting and anaerobic digestion projects. Continue Reading
With newly announced process, Chinese importers can apply for tariff exemptions beginning this week. | Sumrit Tesrumphun/Shutterstock
The Chinese government will consider exempting tariffs on OCC and other recovered fiber on a company-by-company basis. Meanwhile, a tariff on U.S. recycled paper pulp shipments into China has been lifted for one year.
Ontario marketed nearly 82,000 metric tons of curbside glass in 2017, sending most of it to NexCycle, a division of Strategic Materials. | Josep Curto/Shutterstock
A market analysis found a number of downstream options for Ontario’s curbside glass, but material quality and cost challenges pose roadblocks to using many of them.
The Total Fiber Recovery project joins a number of other domestic recycled fiber processing capacity expansions that have been announced or come on-line since China began restricting imports. | Siwakorn1933/Shutterstock
A plant taking in mixed paper and OCC is on the way in Virginia, the latest planned domestic market expansion for U.S. recovered fiber.
The recently introduced legislation covers solar panels in residential, commercial and industrial use. | Heinz Trebuth/Shutterstock
Legislation in Arizona would establish recycling requirements for end-of-life solar panels, directing manufacturers to create a recycling program or face a per-panel fee at point-of-sale.
The U.S. in 2019 shipped 192,000 short tons of mixed paper to South Korea. | Mariusz Bugno/Shutterstock
A large buyer of U.S. scrap paper and plastic is planning measures to reduce imports and increase domestic recycling of those materials.
Notable changes have taken place in markets for curbside recyclables over the past month, including an increase in OCC prices and a steep dive in natural HDPE prices.
A new report on the state of curbside recycling in the United States drew attention in February. | stephen rudolph/Shutterstock
Stories about declining export markets and painful curbside recyclables pricing drew our readers’ attention last month.