The world’s largest retailer underreported the number of containers it distributed over a three-year period in California, leading to $7.2 million in unpaid deposits to the state. The balance was paid in full late last year after it was revealed during an audit.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 40 percent of municipalities included in a research set have programs aimed at diversion of food material. And those cities are not all in regions considered hotbeds of environmentalism.
Chinese importers enter their fourth month without renewed import quotas, and ISRI says meeting a 0.3 percent contamination limit is impossible.
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A common complaint about China’s restriction on scrap materials imports is the lack of solid information about what exactly the upcoming ban will target. A Canadian plastics group is taking data-gathering into its own hands.
Rob Kaplan
In less than half a decade, the Closed Loop Fund has become a household name in the recycling industry, putting sizable capital behind a range of materials recovery initiatives. A leader from the investment effort recently put the fund’s path into perspective.
Chinese authorities have released more specifics about which materials are likely to be affected by a proposed import ban on recovered materials. The action is expected to be implemented at the end of this year.
A bale of plastics No. 3-7. Source: Association of Plastic Recyclers.
The idling of a Baltimore-area plastic recovery facility is the kind of slowdown that’s expected in an innovative project showcasing a still-developing business model, according to a financial backer.
A joint-venture plastics recovery facility in Maryland will end operations in the coming days, citing challenges in the post-consumer plastics industry and pointing to a need to upgrade its equipment.
The top recycling executive at Pratt Industries views China’s planned imports prohibition as a chance for the U.S. industry to clean up its stream.
U.S. recycling leaders who are closely tied to export markets say China’s proposed prohibition on recovered plastic and paper imports could drive changes all the way back to the curb.