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Oh, the irony.

Right at a time when it appears that Americans are boarding the green-living express en masse, the market for recyclables has plunged – the latest victim of the recession, according to today’s New York Times.

Contractors can’t find buyers for reusable paper and cardboard, which have accumulated by the ton and may wind up in landfills if recyclers can’t afford to put them in warehouses for the long term, the newspaper says. Those materials typically find second lives as boxes, auto parts and book covers, but as demand for electronics, cars, shoes and other items has slowed along with the economy, the recyclables are less needed for packaging.

“It’s awful,” Briana Sternberg, education and outreach coordinator for nonprofit Sedona Recycles in Arizona, told the Times. That group is no longer taking old cereal, rice and pasta boxes because their market has evaporated, and is at capacity for holding the recyclables it’s already accepted. “Either it goes to landfill or it begins to cost us money.”

The value of recyclables has slid over the last year, the Times notes: Mixed paper is going for $20 to $25 on the West Coast, from $105 just two months ago. Tin is a mere $5 per ton, down from $327 earlier this year.

Some cities are stopping their recycling programs because they no longer make financial sense, costing as much or more than disposing of the goods as trash. Kanawah County in West Virginia stopped taking most plastics and metals on Friday, according to the Times. But second-graders – who can always be counted on to set the grown-ups straight – made the adult decision to skip recess in favor of writing protest letters to officials in their town of South Charleston, West Virginia, after they were told recycling there might stop.

Their voices were heard: the town will now truck their recyclables to Kentucky. Still, the tykes might not appreciate the carbon footprint, or pollution, that comes with the trip: It’s 77 miles from South Charleston to Pikeville, KY.   

Updated at 11:45 a.m. to adjust distance between South Charleston and Pikeville, KY to 77 miles. It is about 213 miles between South Charleston and Louisville, not 615 miles as previously stated. 

Image by iStockphoto/Sirin Buse  

10 Comments

1. 1. Kayaker 11:18 AM 12/8/08

   You mileage confuses Charleston, South Carolina with South Charleston, West Virginia.

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2. 2. Kayaker 11:19 AM 12/8/08

   "It’s 615 miles from South Charleston to Louisville. " is confusing Charleston, South Carolina with South Charleston, West Virginia.

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3. 3. saw1066 01:03 PM 12/8/08

   I guess the environment takes a back-seat when the costs get a little excessive. I thought it was something we should all do...regardless of the sacrifices...? Yeah....it's all fine when we the public have to make sacrifices, but forget about it when politicians have to do the same. Trust me, I live in Charleston, WV and a large part of the time the stuff that was set out to be recycled ended up in the main garbage truck anyway...due to "unexpected absences" in the sanitation department and not having enough people to run the recycling trucks. What a joke. I (along with many others) went to a lot of trouble to sort all of the different stuff each week (tin, paper, newspaper, plastics, cardboard) and then to see it end up in the regular trash just irked me. I'm no big believer in global warming, but I figured recycling was something that should be done anyway...I guess it should be done until the powers-that-be decide they can't afford it anymore.

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4. 4. scientific earthling 07:02 PM 12/8/08

   You are missing the point. Reduced consumption is good for the survival of our species. Recycling has its environment costs. As people loose income we shall learn to value and treasure resources.
   Ironically we need to thank overpaid company executives, the underlying cause of the current financial crises, for giving our species a second chance.
   

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5. 5. saw1066 in reply to scientific earthling 07:20 PM 12/8/08

   I understand that reduced consumption is good for the Earth...but my whole point...which you seem to be missing...is that everyone pushes the idea of recycling...until some event comes along that makes recycling no longer viable to the entity or group that initated the program to begin with. The current excuse is the price for recycled materials is down...so the city can't afford to recycle. Yet...they are willing (at least in the city listed above...Charleston...I know because I live here) to cite a person and issue a fine for someone who is caught not following their recycling program. It seems that it is okay for the city to back out when the going gets tough...but not the average citizen. As far as the trucks not picking up the recycling during certain weeks due to sickness or vacations...that isn't my fault or problem....lack of prior planning on someone else's part should not constitute a lack of services on my end. It's that simple. Especially when you pay for your sanitation fee...and other taxes go to support county recycling efforts...because they have never been self-supporting....not around here at least.

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6. 6. Peterbart 07:49 PM 12/8/08

   There is a bit of a butterfly effect about all of this. A few thousand people in Nevada buy homes on ridiculously cheap credit. A few years later, housing prices plunge and suddenly many homeowners owe more on their mortgages than the houses are worth. The mortgage rates begin to rise (apparently, no one read the fine print) and homeowners begin to default. At the same time, we realize that the geniuses on Wall Street have bundled these mortgages into complex investment vehicles, and nobody knows what they are worth today or, even worse, what they will be worth tomorrow. Banks begin to fail. The economy craters. Commodity prices drop. And our little recycling centre on Galiano Island is unable to sell scrap metal anymore.
   
   http://www.georgesonbay.com/2008/11/recyclings-butterfly-effect.html

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7. 7. eco-steve 10:50 AM 12/10/08

   If waste paper cannot be recycled for making cardboard, and you throw it on the tip, it will gas off into the atmosphere in the form of Methane. Methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so why not use the paper in bioreactors to produce biogas? We must include the environmental costs of NOT recycling in our balance-sheet...

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