Americans routinely toss food waste and other garbage into their recycling carts, and China, the country that receives the bulk of these contaminated recyclables, says it has had enough. China, by far the world鈥檚 biggest importer and re颅processor of recyclables, has put the United States on notice that this fall and early next year, it will begin turning away all but the most pristine used plastics and unsorted waste paper.
That has alarmed government and industry officials in the United States 鈥� especially on the West Coast 鈥� who face the challenge of either cleaning up the vast and never-颅ending stream of recyclables to meet China鈥檚 strict standards, or finding some other place to dump the messy items 鈥� perhaps in landfills.
The U.S. recycling industry has been wringing its hands for several months about the problem. On Thursday, the reverberations of China鈥檚 tough stance reached Sam Miller, owner of Lane Apex, a hauler that picks up curbside commingled recyclables such as plastics, unsorted paper, cardboard and metal cans from homes in Eugene.
For years, Lane Apex has trucked these recyclables 鈥� which Miller readily admits often are contaminated with waste food, plastic bags and other trash 鈥� to EcoSort, a business in Glenwood that hauls the materials to sorting centers in Portland and Vancouver, Wash., for eventual shipment mostly to China.
Miller said that on Thursday, EcoSort said it would no longer accept the roughly 425 tons of recyclables Lane Apex brings in each month.
Miller said he struck a deal 鈥� perhaps temporary 鈥� with another company, International Paper, to accept his recyclables.
Lane Apex itself has no room to temporarily store the mounds of materials local residents toss into their recycling carts.
With China鈥檚 looming ban, the entire West Coast system for sorting and shipping off recyclables is beginning to slow down, as the industry realizes it may not be able to get rid of the stuff, Miller warned.
In Hong Kong, which ships its waste paper and cardboard to the Chinese mainland, mounds of the materials already are piling up at docks, and cargo ships with Hong Kong waste paper destined for the mainland are being kept at sea, according to news reports.
Some sorting centers in Portland have slowed their cleaning lines in an attempt to better clean the recyclables to meet China鈥檚 new standards, the industry said. But that means they are accepting fewer loads of recyclables from around the state.
Miller said he has begun to contemplate his 鈥渓ast resort:鈥� dumping truckloads of recyclables at Lane County鈥檚 Short Mountain Landfill, which could be difficult given state and local regulations.
Miller is not happy about the idea of junking the recyclables. 鈥淲e鈥檙e spending a lot of money to pick it up,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to throw it away.鈥�
The crisis hasn鈥檛 reach that point, yet. Whether it gets there is anyone鈥檚 guess. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell you what鈥檚 going to happen,鈥� said Peter Spendelow, a solid waste analyst for the state Department of Environmental Quality. 鈥淭here鈥檚 too much un颅certainty at this point.鈥�
Because the recycling stream 鈥� from commingled curbside pickup in Eugene and Springfield to materials cleaning and reprocessing in China 鈥� is massive and never-ending, any disruption could be very messy.
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