Submitted by Sarah Cooke on Wed, Dec 03, 2008 - 11:22 am
Posted in
I received an email titled 'Demand for Recyclables Drops, Causing Stockpiles and Slashing Prices'in my inbox today from GreenBiz.com.
According to this, the US recycling industry was enjoying inflated demand due to the temporary closure of many facilities in China surrounding the Olympic Games. Now that these facilities have reopened, US recyclers are struggling to stay afloat.
It is interesting that this came to my inbox today because last night, at our Conscious Consumerism event, a member mentioned to me that one of Austin's key players in the recycling industry closed up shop and left town because they were unable to find buyers for their recycled raw materials.
Perhaps a bubble has burst in the global recyclables market; one that we had not realized was inflating.
Bookmark/Share this post with:
- Sarah Cooke's blog
- Login or register to post comments
You might be interested in...
Related Post(s):
- Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 9: November 2008
- Dig into Austin's Zero Waste Plan
- Austin's Green City Festival
- Dart Music International Workshop
- Mobile Loaves & Fishes: Micro-Enterprise Program
- Challenge Workshop - Micro-Enterprise Program
- Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 3: June 2008
- Sierra Club Austin - The Sustainable Business Movement
- Solid Waste Services Master Plan: Public Input Meeting
- This Is Your Brain on Summer
CenTX Zero Waste Alliance Forming Now
Robin Schneider of Texas Campaign for the Environment (robin@texasenvironment.org) is leading the formation of a “Central Texas Zero Waste Alliance” to ensure our region takes the aims of "reduce, reuse, recycle" to a whole new level. Whether it's the vision of green collar jobs or the nightmare of expansions of problem landfills or the threat of methane gas contributing to climate change, the time has come for a strong grassroots movement on these issues. The Alliance can be a vehicle for public education of Central Texas residents, businesses and elected officials about pathways to Zero Waste. It can also advocate for new Zero Waste initiatives.
The first public meeting of the Central Texas Zero Waste Alliance will be:
Monday Jan 5th at 6:30 pm
at the Austin History Center
at the corner of 9th and Guadalupe. (Street parking is free after 5:30 pm.)
Contact Robin if you are unable to attend but interested in being including in the organization's distribution list.
It's time that Texas joined the international effort aiming for Zero Waste. It won't happen unless there is a broad, active base of support for it.
With some effort, the City of Austin's plan can serve as a springboard for other public institutions - cities, counties, universities, school districts, state government - as well as small and large businesses to set Zero Waste goals and plans too. (Imagine the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce recruiting Zero Waste businesses to our region, as they are now doing with clean energy sector!)
Single Stream Austin
To compound problems in Austin, the San Antonio facility that processes our recyclables can not handle the increased raw materials. At this point, though they are picking up the bins, there is no single stream recycling in Austin.
The City Council did vote to implement the ambitious zero waste by 2050 preliminary plan two weeks ago. In light of the fact that we do not have a recycling plant here and the budgeted funds for this project have been redistributed to other projects in the past, it will be slow and costly to implement this plan.
The good news is that we now see how commodities prices do indeed effect these efforts and can build in contractual safe guards to ensure price does not drive this process. It would be nice if market forces helped drive the issue, but this is much more a social and environmental issue than it is a business opportunity.
To help this process, we need to be vigilant in seeing the city and state adopt these resolutions AND invest in them. Unlike renewable energy there may be no solid business case for recyclables which makes it more difficult for political support on both sides of the aisle. The only way to do that is to apply friendly pressure to our representatives to act, and act now.