Recycling - Do I Just Not Understand How The World Works

about 4 months ago, we got a letter in the mail from our county's waste management office. changes were coming to the recycling program. the letter detailed about 30 different things that we are not allowed to recycle anymore. the 2 things, that i remember, were that we could no longer recycle plastic garbage sacks, and we could no longer recycle paper that has been shredded. i love plastic garbage sacks, and shredded paper, what is up with that.

evidently, there was an uproar about the letter and the new rules. two days after everyone received that letter in the mail, our paper ran a very short article about that recycling letter. the intent of that article was to calm people down and let people know that the county government was not to blame for the new changes, but that 'china' was behind these new mandatory changes. and i was like, huh??? the newspaper article went on to explain that the entire west coast of the united states sends our recycling to china, and china said something like, make these changes or we will not take your recycling anymore.

the kicker here… my parents are from bisbee, az., and for ages, they have received the weekly bisbee newspaper in the mail. about a month after the sacramento bee newspaper ran their little article about the recycling letter from the county of sacramento, the weekly bisbee observer ran a front page article about a crisis that the bisbee city council was facing. apparently, china told bisbee that they did not want any recycling from them, ever again; and the bisbee city council was dumbstruck. they had no place to send their recycling, they had no idea what to do, and was hoping for suggestions.

i used to like recycling. but i don't feel like recycling anything now. it just goes to china, and the fact that china refuses to accept shredded paper for recycling leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. i have no idea why we can not recycle things for ourselves, and i have no idea how recycling works in china. hopefully, they do recycle and not just comb through our "recyclables" looking for stuff.

anyway, it just makes me sad. i guess i just don't understand how the world works anymore.

 

I'm sure you can.
If the 10 wealthiest philanthropists donate 1% of their wealth, that'll be a good start to building recycling plants which in turn will create jobs.

 

The county I live in, Bay County, Florida has a Waste to Energy Incinerator. It also has a landfill where a lot ends up. This house and many others use the incinerator. We pay a small fee to get rid of our waste but it is cheaper than being on some company's route. I think it produces 7.5 MW. The power is sold to the local utility. The company also recycles out of the material. Our aluminum goes to a local man who recycles full time.

In my work we go through huge amounts of copper, aluminum, stainless and brass. Also just plain steel. It all goes to a scrapyard where it is separated in common piles and then resold to be used again.