Find Out How Your Curb Recycling Program Is Changing
If you haven’t heard yet, your curbside recycling program is likely to run into problems – and there is no solution.
Across the United States, local recycling companies are facing a number of challenges with China’s ban on imports of our recyclable materials and garbage. Businesses are awash with recycling and garbage and are faced with widespread pollution problems (or garbage mixed with recycling – a cardinal sin in recycling plants).
Some businesses stopped accepting certain materials, while others stopped recycling altogether. How do you know if your curbside program is affected? Waste Dive , a website dedicated to all things trash, tracks how each state is exposed on a daily basis – and how it might affect your own city. They also rate each state according to how it was affected by the Chinese ban, on a scale from minimal to severe.
For example, the city of Clearwater, Florida , recently had to send one-third of its recyclable materials to a recycling facility (mainly an incinerator ) due to pollution. Meanwhile, recycling costs are skyrocketing in parts of Maine (one city has even abandoned its roadside recycling program), and another city is threatening people with $ 100,000 fines for pollution.
If you want to avoid a massive fine or just find out more, you can check the Waste Dive tracker regularly for updates. If you see in the news is something that has not been recorded, you can send WasteDiveemail with any ads.
And if your recycling program is affected, either because it has stopped taking this or that material or has stopped completely, do an Internet search using the Earth911 locator at nearby landing sites where you can lug your recyclables.