Just as China bans the import of 24 types of solid waste, “including unsorted waste paper, textiles and plastics,” in a filing to the World Trade Organization this spring, Christiansburg is launching its new curbside recycling program. In a vast ripple effect, global economics is increasingly visible locally.
Accustomed to shipping recyclables east full of sodden paper and contaminated with bowling balls and wire, US recyclables that were going to China have run up against what is being called “The Green Wall” – an unrealistically low contamination rate of half a percent.
Without the Chinese market, recyclables are piling up, flooding the domestic market, dropping prices and, importantly for the new recycling program and everyone who recycles, demanding higher standards.
But Montgomery Regional Solid Waste Authority (555 Authority Drive, Christiansburg), and Alan Cummins, its executive director, sees the push as a positive, forcing nations and individuals to take responsibility for the trash they generate and think about its fate.
“Their [the Chinese] goal is to clean up the pollution issues that they’ve got. They’re in their Industrial Age, citizens have let their government know that pollution is very bad and the government wants to become self-reliant. They’re saying ‘let’s get rid of bad polluters and get clean’. The [unrealistic] half a percent contamination requirement is them saying ‘no’ to the trash of others. For 30 years they would take anything they could get. They’d take it no matter how contaminated, but no longer,” he said.
Over 89 million tons of American municipal solid waste was recycled in 2014 according to an EPA report, a recycling rate of about 30 percent. Nearly half of that had gone to China according to an NPR report.
“We’ve always gotten premium prices because our material is very good, but as we see the quality rising, we’ve got to meet those high standards too,” Teresa Sweeny, MRSWA education and training coordinator said.
And education is the key to taking that responsibility according to the waste authority.
New and standardized signs on bins will communicate no plastics coded #3 through #7, and no Styrofoam. And no plastic bags.
Plastic grocery bags are the biggest source of contamination to the region’s recyclables as well as being stranglers and cloggers of the machinery. Using reusable sacks for groceries could reduce that significant source of contamination.
In addition to standardized signage on bins, actively communicating and answering questions about the curbside program, the Town of Christiansburg is holding the first in a series of community meetings tonight from5:30-7 p.m. at the Christiansburg Aquatic Center.
“We have a residual rate of less than one percent,” Sweeny said. “The issue, at this point, is that local markets are getting an increase in tonnage of recyclables and the pricing is down because there is no demand,”
These are interesting times, Cummins said, but he’s not worried.
“Recycling is always going to happen. It’s a great thing. As long as you recycle it’s a good thing,” he said.
The curbside program begins in July recycling newspapers, cardboard, cereal and tissue boxes, glass bottles and jars, metal cans, and plastics coded #1 and #2.
All of those things can be placed together in the bins.
But people cannot recycle plastics coded #3 through #7. They cannot recycle aluminum food containers, shredded paper, electronics, Styrofoam, plastic bags, food waste or cords and wires, called “tanglers”.
Once people know these parameters, Sweeny encourages the community to take their education and send it back downstream to manufacturers reducing the amount of unrecyclables that are being made.
“Contact the number on the unrecyclable object and tell the manufacturer that the local program will not accept that code. There’s not always an option there are reasons things are packaged in a #6 or a #3 or a #1, but with technology improving all the time, we can make it work,” she said. “We’ve always had to continually educate recyclers in our area. We went to single stream and we’re not changing that at all and putting everything in one container, we’re just be very selective and want to maintain our good reputation. It’s one of those things that will just be on-going.”
