David Biderman, SWANA executive director
In a recent interview, SWANA leader David Biderman said communities don’t want to undo decades of outreach work and tell residents to stop putting certain items in the bin, even if China’s scrap policies are shaking up market realities.
When it began facing constricted fiber exports to China, Waste Management adapted by selling into alternative markets. As a result, it has been able to avoid stockpiling or landfilling recyclables, company CEO Jim Fish said.
MRF operators are increasing their labor forces and installing additional sorting equipment in response to Chinese restrictions on scrap imports. At the same time, a standard ton of single-stream recyclables in the U.S. has dropped in value by roughly 50 percent in recent weeks.
Ashley Zanolli of Oregon DEQ speaks at REFOR 2017.
In recent years, efforts out of Oregon have helped set the national pace on topics such as sustainable materials management and recycling metrics. Now, the state is beginning to do the same when it comes to food waste – or, more precisely, wasted food.
The nation’s largest glass beneficiation company caught the attention of a private investment firm, which announced last week it will acquire the operation.
A movie studio that paid $1,500 to purchase a chair will often want it gone as soon as the shoot is finished. The L.A. Shares program in America’s second-largest city works to ensure the chair is donated instead of sent into the waste stream.
Cartons, corrugate, expanded polystyrene, film and pouches are among the materials and products California officials say could be subject to mandatory packaging management rules.
The upstream impacts of China’s import restrictions have been increasingly covered in national and local press, raising the level of public consciousness about where recyclables ultimately end up and how that could all change.
MRF company ReCommunity and Ann Arbor, Mich. have agreed to settle their legal dispute without an award of money to either party.
The U.S. OCC market plummeted last week as China substantially slows its recovered material imports. Inside China, the lack of import capability has driven domestic OCC prices sky high.