How did you figure this out? Curious if Durham does the same thing.
A friend of mine owns a waste service company that operates in my county. He clued me in on exactly how the magic happens here. I just use the recycle can as another trash can now. But don’t worry. The planet is still safe. I promise to continue to save the Earth by keeping 40 year-old trucks running down the road as opposed to wasting precious resources on building new ones. Mom, you are welcome. It’s my pleasure, really.
Unfortunate, but real. I am the Chairperson for the Mecklenburg County Waste Management Advisory Board, and the recycling facilities as well as all landfills are under the board's purview, and we have been working this issue for months. Let me share some of the facts with you all. The problem is countrywide, recycling is a business and the buyers need to have a reason to buy goods at a rate that makes sense to them. Market compression has driven the cost of recycled paper, plastic, and glass upside down. Aluminum still works. The largest markets for the US are in Asia, China primarily. Since our leaders started playing chicken with China, they started rejecting shipments of recycled goods claiming they are contaminated, not cleaned enough. Many of the shipments ended up being picked up by Vietnam at a fraction of the original price. Vietnam then sells the same shipment to China for a decent profit. Same one, no change. And the US remains upside down. Many other shipments get stored in "Speculative Storage Facilities" in Asian countries, basically an big open field by the coast. When storms hit the coastal areas, our recycled stuff flows out to sea, and you get the giant floating plastic islands that kill sea life. So when you read on facebook that the plastic floating blob came from Asia, its true. But they will never tell you that most of the material floating came from the US, the largest consumer in the world.
The county has been trying to continuously educate our citizens with what is actually recyclable, trying to minimize the "contamination" of non-recyclables into the bundles that are ship to China. Hope is we show good faith in a reduction of contamination, they will take the shipments. However, it is a political issue more than a recyclables issue. We want to continue to recycle because it is a good habit, and if we loose the habit it can again take years to regain, so if you can, continue to recycle and let the market decide what they do with it.
What can you do? I will ask you to please, please continue recycling, let your children know that it is important and continue the habit. Yes, many cities across the US have stopped recycling altogether, they can't afford it. But we can still, keep at it. The markets may change, the tariff war started by the current administration will end and the markets can return. Glass is the worse, no recycling market besides local markets due to the transportation weight. If you can, stop buying items in glass to reduce the wastestream. Try to use reusable bags for the supermarket, since the single largest contamination complaint is the plastic bags.
