Lincoln, NE: sharing what "green" we have to attract what we lack.
Recycling centers feeling economic downturn
An interesting mention of a NYTimes article about how some recycling companies are having a difficult time finding buyers for their materials.
I wonder how the Lincoln companies are coping?
I wonder how the Lincoln companies are coping?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Andrea Davis on -
Well, I know that Midwest Recycling was purchased by greenstar, when stock prices fell. It depends on what economic school of thought you come from as to whether this is good or bad.
The main symptom would probably be in large recyclers dropping their payouts for certain materials. For example, aluminum cans do not pay per pound now what they were paid at the beginning of Summer 2008. I believe it dropped something like $.30 per pound.
What might happen is something crazy creative with reusing before the recycling as a result of the market for cardboard dropping, for example. I know that I, for one, can never find a refrigerator box when I need one. Maybe competing companies come up with a system of redistributing cardboard to ebayers, christmas shoppers, moving companies. Hmmmm. Or parents who need refrigerator boxes for forts.
But as someone mentioned earlier in another discussion, it's amazing what you can do with unsorted trash. The green-minded who are willing to pay to have someone pick up their recyclables are very happy with the unsorted recyclables option.
But maybe our recycling company members can comment further.
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Permalink Reply by Amy Rose on -
Who would of thought that recyclers would be feeling the pinch. This really sucks because now more than ever we need to be taking care of our wastes.
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Permalink Reply by Craig Gubbels on -
Markets in recycling have sharply declined in the past 6 weeks simply due to the state of our economy. This drop is from the simplest law of economics, high supply and limited demand. Here’s what’s going on.
1. US exports a high percentage of its cardboard and newsprint to China to produce new boxes so China can ship new goods back to US. Now that we are not buying like we did 6 months to a year ago China has less need to produce more boxes creating an extremely high supply of cardboard in the US causing the markets to crash.
2. Old newspapers are often made into blown in insulation. In fact, there are 2 manufactures within 3 hours of Lincoln. This insulation is used in remodeling and new home construction. Since no one is building houses or has extra money to add on to their existing home the demand for paper is dropping.
3. The auto industry is a major buyer of various grades of plastics and metals. Again since most people are not buying cars and the Big 3 are on the verge of bankruptcy these items are tanking fast.
It is going to be a while before these markets completely turn around. I believe our best hope, even though it isn’t my first choice, is for the Big 3 to be bailed out so they can drive the supply chain of recycled goods. Hopefully in the next 6-9 months this will be enough of a push to stimulate our economy.
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