We didn’t see this coming.
But it doesn’t pay to recycle, according to a lengthy story in Sunday’s Kansas City Star.
One reason is because the price of oil remains depressed, and petroleum products are essential to the production of plastic.
Another reason is because China has stopped growing at a record pace and its energy needs are no longer a yawning hole in which we could pour our cast off recyclables.
All across the country recycling centers are closing because of the negative return on value. Today, it’s more economical to produce something out of oil than to recycle old materials. Today’s products also use less plastic. The typical plastic bottle of water, for example, contains 50 percent less plastic than one of 15 years ago. Last year, one ton of No. 2 plastic sold for $320 a ton. Today, that mountain of milk jugs sells for $60.
And it’s not just plastic. Paper and aluminum products also are fetching much lower prices, forcing municipalities to increase the cost of curbside pickup.
SO DOES this mean we stop recycling?
No, but it does require a shift in thinking. Even if recycling isn’t a profitable business, it still costs a lot to dump all that stuff into our landfills.
Chanute, for example, last week raised its trash collection fees by $1.95 a month to allow for a $1.3 million expansion to its landfill, which is almost full. That brings its trash collection fees to almost $15 a month. (For August, the Lynn/Wolfe household’s was $8.50.)
As citizens of this earth, we have not been very good at learning that recycling is to be the last of the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and then if all else fails, recycle.
Realizing we are paying double for each bottle of water — for its initial purpose as well as for its disposal — could help in curbing the use of disposables.
To do so will require a seismic shift in attitude.
— Susan Lynn
