How is California adjusting to the problem of low prices for reusable materials? . The plant separated recyclable material from the garbage and clean paper, plastics, metals and glass that could be reused. Infinitus made much of its money by selling the reusable material to other companies. Some of this money went to Montgomery thanks to a profit-sharing agreement between the company and the city. But, in October 2015, the plant was suddenly closed for losing too much money. It was a victim of rock-bottom prices for commodities, including reusables such as paper and plastic. Another problem was a higher-than-expected contamination rate caused by too much of Montgomery's reusable material being too dirty to sell. The closing of the Infinitus plant highlights the problems now facing the recycling industry.“Good times make us happy, and sometimes when we’re happy we don’t think down the road,” said Chaz Miller, policy director of the National Waste & Recycling Association. The NW&RA is a group that represents waste and recycling companies across the United States. “But now we’re down the road, and not sure what’s ahead.”For years, recycling programs seemed like magic. Cities, counties and states were helping the environment and spending little money to do so. Many saved money on garbage disposal fees, some even made money by selling their reusable material. Recycling companies offered low-cost contracts to these local governments. They simply wanted to sell any reusable material at what were then record-high prices. The prices for raw materials soared from the late 1990s until the financial crisis of 2008. In April 2008, the price of scrap metals and paper hit a high of $380.25 a ton. A ton is equal to 2,000 pounds. Plastics experienced similar highs. “People forgot about commodity risk,” the NW&RA's Miller said. They forgot that sky-high prices might one day go down. Prices began a long, gradual slide in 2011 before dropping sharply in 2015. The price of paper and metals fell nearly $100 a ton to $156.77. Many prices fell to nearly half of their previous highs. As these prices went down, recycling companies found a simpler way to make money. They began charging local governments higher rates. It is unclear whether states are seeing a dip in recycling efforts as the costs of collecting and processing go up. Some states are taking measures to address this problem. California, for example, is trying to create more domestic demand for its reusable materials. Mark Oldfield is the spokesperson for CalRecycle, the agency in charge of recycling in California. “We’re good at collecting stuff,” he said. “We need to get good at using these materials here and creating a market for them.”He points to a California program called Recycling Market Development Zones (RMDZ). RMDZ aims to make it easier for manufacturers to make products using recycled materials. American Textile & Supply Inc., for example, now uses 1,000 tons, or about 2.2 million pounds, of material a year that otherwise would have gone to landfills to make its products.
Princess Paper Inc., meanwhile, says RMDZ helps it to make towel and tissue products from 5,000 tons, or about 11 million pounds, of recycled paper each year. It is a core belief of the recycling industry that recycling has to be easy. That’s why a growing number of programs use single-bin systems that allow people to put all their recyclables into one container, instead of sorting them into two or three containers. Garbage goes in its own can, straight to a landfill.
However, single-bin systems make recycling harder for processing companies that have to separate and clean the material. It uses more equipment and manpower. If convenience is the goal, what could be easier than putting all recyclables and garbage together? That was the idea behind Infinitus' Montgomery plant, which had its own problems. The Infinitus plant suffered a greater loss of recyclable material than expected due to contamination.
Food waste is one way that recyclable material becomes contaminated. For example, a pizza box may not be reusable if it is covered in cheese. As Infinitus found out, when contaminated materials cannot be sold, a plant might not make enough money to remain open. There is no single answer for how communities should approach these problems. Montgomery appears to have given up combining recyclables with garbage. The city expects to take over the Infinitus plant, likely to only separate different types of recyclables from one another. Most communities that already practice single-bin recycling are unlikely to change. That is because their residents are used to the system and the means for handling it are already in place