Many municipalities around the country will acknowledge the 48th celebration of Earth Day on Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 by highlighting their recycling programs. It’s a great time to talk about the importance of basic recycling standards and what is necessary to keep our local recycling systems strong.
The recycling industry is grappling with a dual threat: The value of recovered recyclable products has plummeted over the past couple of years and the amount of contamination in the recycling has risen. Too much garbage is present in the recycling stream, clogging sorting facilities and contaminating good recyclables.
As recycling costs are rising, the demand for recycled materials is falling. Recently China has imposed bans on purchasing recycled materials. Meanwhile low oil prices have increased the use of virgin materials for products reducing the demand for recycled material. For reference articles please see the end of letter. I’ve included a talk by the President of one of the mills that reuses our sorted paper.
As your local service provider and the recycling sorting facility operator, it is our job to help your community keep the trash out of the recycling stream and thus keep our local recycling systems strong.
How do we keep the trash out of the recycling stream? Together, let’s tackle the problem head on and get back to the basics of recycling.
Contamination rates at the recycling material recovery facility are increasing. We are finding that well-intentioned residents are putting things that they think should or could be recycled in the bins:
We are asking that you please support our initiative to clean up the recycling stream and communicate with your residents the above two (or three) components of our ‘back to the basics’ recycling standards. We will also be communicating via email to all residents that have signed up with us to receive notifications.
Sincerely,
Danielle Pellitteri
V.P. of Sales
