How the economic downturn has prevented UK councils from recycling household rubbish.

[T_i_B]

A couple of RW papers have picked up on this story today, and it is going to cause huge problems if the market for recycled goods dries up as many councils over here put a lot of time and effort into recycling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/4091532/First-glimpse-of-rubbish-mountains-caused-by-recycling-industry-slump.html

A slump in demand for recyclable materials means local authorities and their contractors cannot shift the waste and are being forced to store it in stockpiles. At Greencycle's warehouse, in County Durham, the mountain of paper, card, glass and plastic bottles now weighs almost 3,000 tonnes. Before the current crisis, the site would normally contain just 500 tonnes of waste at any one time.

The stockpile began to grow when the market for recycled card, paper and other materials dried up. Paper mills and other recycling processors shut their doors to new deliveries, leaving suppliers in the UK with increasing amounts of rubbish on their hands.

The crisis has begun to ease in the past few days, with mills and other processors once more accepting deliveries. However the market is still volatile and the price paid for recyclable waste has remained at a record low, raising the fear that more local authorities will begin dumping it in landfill sites.

The price of recycled cans has fallen from £200 a tonne to £20 a tonne. Paper and card has fallen from £60 a tonne to just £10 a tonne, while certain plastics have halved to around £50 a tonne.

[depakid]

1. This has been a problem in the states as well

The only upside is that metal thieve are going to be in for big surprises when they try to sell their ill gotten wares....

[T_i_B]

2. What I'm interested in as much as anything...

...is how much of our rubbish are we selling back to China for recycling now. If that's slumped then I find it worryingly difficult to see what we are going to be putting back onto the container vessels that brings us all the shiny new stuff from China.

And yes, I have noticed that coppers theives can't possibly be getting the returns they used to (which isn't really such a bad thing if you dislike copper theives).

[madrchsod]

3. one of the usa biggest exports to china is cardboard and paper

some waste removal companies rely on the price of recyclables for their profit.with the collapse of the market my city faces higher rates in the next contract negotiation.

the only recyclable has is just barely holding it`s value is aluminum cans.

[kickysnana]

4. When the warehouses get full there is almost always a fire n/t

[MountainLaurel]

5. Our recycling company stopped taking glass

They also stopped taking cardboard for a brief time, but I think they found someone else to sell it to.