A Word About Recycling with Ollie Maier
Although it does not directly affect the items we recycle either through curbside recycling or our taking the recyclables to a drop-off site, the changing markets for the recycled materials does directly affect those collecting these items.
And since China, where a large majority of our recycled materials were previously exported to, put very significant restrictions on what they would take a couple of years ago, finding other overseas markets was a challenge for these companies.
A recent article in the Resource Recycling newsletter addressed a comparison of the 2017 and 2018 markets. And because China’s very restrictive policy took effect Jan. 1, 2018, the comparison helps show how China’s policy changed flow of recyclables.
The statistics show that overall, U.S. companies exported nearly 21 million short tons of recovered fiber in 2018, up from 20.1 million in 2017. However, the markets for paper and cardboard were not the same. While China reduced fiber imports by 3.7 million tons, there was significant growth in exports to India, Indonesia, South Korea and elsewhere.
Along with the change of where the exports were going to, the amount of the exported materials also changed. For example, mixed-paper exports went down roughly 25 percent, from 3.9 million tons in 2017 to 2.9 million in 2018. However, the cardboard exports for the same period grew nearly 27 percent, increasing from 9.9 million tons to 12.5 million tons.
Switching to plastics, the change is even more significant. The amount exported decreased 35 percent between 2017 and 2018. Only 2.4 billion pounds of scrap plastic were exported last year compared to 3.7 billion pounds in 2017 and an even larger amount of 4.3 billion pounds in 2016.
This was primarily because with their new restrictions, China went from receiving 33.4 percent of recovered plastic exported from the U.S. in 2017 to just 4.5 percent in 2018.
To help offset this change, some other countries started increasing the amount they would take. The top one was Malaysia, which increased its share of U.S. scrap plastic from 7.3 percent to 18.8 percent. Some of the others were Canada, India, Thailand, Mexico and Turkey.
Going from last years plastics exports to a little about this year’s, another article addressed what is happening now. With U.S. traders exporting 122 million pounds of recovered plastics in January, each month that number has grown to 141 million pounds of scrap plastic in April.
While that appears to be good news, it really is not that great. April exports were only about half their volume from a year ago, when 263 million pounds of scrap plastic was shipped out.
Even with this being the case, please continue to recycle your plastic bottles and jugs, plus your paper and cardboard. The diligent people taking it are becoming experts at finding markets for it, both in our country and overseas.
Till next week, do have an enjoyable and safe one.
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Ollie is a local citizen concerned with the environment and helping others. A retired Air Force fighter and instructor pilot, he is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and received his degrees at Texas State University where he worked on staff before totally retiring. For questions or comments, he invites you to call him at 512-353-7432 or email omaier@txstate.edu.
