 |
| Workers at ACUA recycling center remove plastic bags and other material likely to be rejected in China. |
Michelle Brunetti reports for the Atlantic City Press:
At the end of the line at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority is a pile of rejected items. On top sits a hula hoop.
It is clearly not recyclable, but someone put it into curbside recycling.
Large and easy to spot, it’s not the most problematic of the contamination that comes through regularly, according to Plant Manager Leo Bustos, of Mays Landing.
That would be plastic bags.
While technically recyclable, there is no market for them, he said.
“We get tons of them a month,” Bustos said. They must be hand-picked out of the waste stream. If not, they will contaminate either paper bales or other plastic bales, causing problems for the buyers of the materials.
Contamination like that caused China, long the main importer of the world’s waste, to enact more stringent rules about what it will accept for recycling.
The country started demanding higher-quality recyclables in 2013 and announced several months ago it will stop taking many types of plastics, unsorted paper and other materials in January. In a filing with the World Trade Organization, explaining a policy called National Sword, China cited too high a contamination level in what ends up there.
The Chinese imported 48 percent of the world’s plastic waste in 2015, according to Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries figures. That was 7.3 million metric tons of plastic scrap, said New Jersey Association of Recyclers Executive Director Marie Kruzan.
They imported 29.2 million metric tons of fiber, according to ISRI figures. That is half of the world’s paper, she said.
“That shows the dominance they have in the marketplace,” Kruzan said.
Like this? Use form in upper right to receive free updates
See popular posts from the last 30 days in right column —
>>
See popular posts from the last 30 days in right column —
>>
