Contribuited by Randi Perlman
In 2019, the recycling industry was at crisis point due to China’s imposed bans on imported recyclables from the U.S. and other markets. Episode 3 brings us to 2020, and another devastating worldwide event – COVID 19. Even though recycling was deemed an essential service, the sweeping effects of the pandemic have wreaked havoc on an already ailing industry. There have been many more closures, and municipalities around the U.S. have had to dedicate more time, funding, and effort into the increasing issues that are plaguing their recycling programs.
Amidst the industry bans and pandemic outbreak – what does the future of recycling industry operations look like? Many experts have weighed in on this question, and many agree that now, more than ever before, there is a pressing need to continue recycling waste – in order to reduce contamination levels and slow the harmful effects of greenhouse gases and climate change.
Today and beyond, the industry worldwide will need community leaders and forward-thinkers to come up with state-of-the-art solutions to unprecedented problems. This means discovering and investing in entrepreneurs with innovative, new-to-the-table ideas backed by science and research. It also means improving the rate of technology adoption in the recycling industry, so that digital transformation can have a positive future impact. It means embracing technology-driven recycling techniques and partner-driven collaborations with unlikely bed-fellows… And all of this will take technology-based recycling education in order to help solve the wide-scale problems faced by MRFs (Materials Recovery Facilities).
Considerations like recycling plant automation, encouraging closed loop recycling policy and environmental protections, and finding new models to fund and expand existing recycling programs are paramount to the future of this industry. Corporate and residential sponsorships could be a route forward, putting sustainable growth back in the hands of the private sector as the public sector recovers and re-orients itself, post COVID.
Here in the Mat-Su Borough, we are extremely fortunate. A small band of passionate recyclers, including our beloved long-time director, Mollie Boyer, came together 24 years ago and began to formulate a plan, a way to make recycling available to Valley residents while keeping the process clean and sustainable. Valley Community for Recycling Solutions (VCRS) is still following that mission today, collecting clean and sorted materials, baling them separately, and finding markets throughout the Lower 48 looking for those exact commodities. Our materials are not shipped to a sorting facility, they go directly to an end-user, saving time, effort, resources and money while finding their way INTO new products and uses, and as importantly, staying OUT OF the solid waste stream and our landfills.
The recycling industry is too important to ALL of us to let it shut down. In 2022, let’s consider the history of recycling, the battles fought and won to protect the earth and its people. Let’s chart a new course throughout our great country and around this amazing world, to rework the systems that we have, or come up with better ones, to keep our essential recycling programs alive & thriving!
Pick up next month’s edition of The People’s Paper/Make a Scene Magazine for Recycling Repeats Itself, Episode 4
