Oregon is serious about recycling.聽Its residents are accustomed to dutifully separating milk cartons, yogurt containers, cereal boxes and kombucha bottles from their trash to divert them from the landfill. But this year, because of a far-reaching rule change in China, some of the recyclables are ending up in the local dump anyway.
In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in dozens of American cities and towns 鈥� including several in Oregon 鈥� have gone to landfills.
In the past, the municipalities would have shipped much of their used paper, plastics and other scrap materials to China for processing. But as part of聽,聽China announced last summer that it聽no longer wanted to import 鈥渇oreign garbage.鈥澛燬ince Jan. 1 it has聽, and tightened聽standards聽for materials it does accept.
While some waste managers already send their recyclable materials to be processed domestically, or are shipping more聽to other countries, others have been聽unable to find聽a substitute for the Chinese market. 鈥淎ll of a sudden, material being collected on the street doesn鈥檛 have a place to go,鈥� said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, one of the largest waste managers in the country.
China鈥檚 stricter requirements also mean that loads of recycling are more likely to be considered contaminated if they contain materials that are not recyclable. That has compounded a problem that waste managers call wishful or aspirational recycling: people setting aside items for recycling because they believe or hope they are recyclable, even when they aren鈥檛.
In the Pacific Northwest, Republic has diverted聽more than 2,000 tons of paper to landfills聽since the Chinese ban came into effect, Mr. Keller said. The company has been unable to move that material to a market 鈥渁t any price or cost,鈥� he said. Though Republic is dumping only a small portion of its total inventory so far 鈥� the company handles over five million tons of recyclables nationwide each year 鈥� it sent little to no paper to landfills last year.
But for smaller companies, like Rogue Disposal and Recycling, which serves much of Oregon, the Chinese ban has upended operations.聽Rogue sent all its recycling to landfills for the first few months of the year, said Garry Penning, a spokesman.
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