SWAG agenda 032818 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

3/2012018 China's limits on recycling being felt in Triangle, North Carolina I News & Observer Carlos Acevedo, center, sorts Incoming materials at the Sonoco Recycling facility in Raleigh. Casey Toth - loth @newsobserver ,an But recycling only works when there is someone willing to buy the materials people put in their bins. With China taking itself out of the market, "the recycling system is stressed right now," Taylor said. One measure of that stress is that local governments that collect recycling at the curb are now earning little if anything when they pass it on to recycling companies. The City of Raleigh sent 28,412 tons of recycling to the Sonoco Recycling plant on the east side of town in the year ending last June 30. Last June, the city received $9 per ton. "Last month, we received $0.00," city spokeswoman Terri Godwin Hyman wrote in an email. "According to Sonoco, this is likely to be the case for at least the foreseeable future." Sonoco and other companies that collect and prepare recyclables to be reused say residents can help. They say filling bins with only clean, acceptable materials makes them easier (and cheaper) to sort and get to market. Recyclables are all mixed together when they're collected, and places like the Sonoco plant on Rogers Road are where they're separated. The glass ends up in a pile outside, waiting to be taken to a plant in Wilson, while the other materials - paper, cardboard, aluminum, steel and different types of plastic - are baled and loaded on to trucks, mostly bound for factories in the Southeast. http:IAw .newsobsoNermWnews /business /anicle2O5296704.htmi 3/10