declining quality in the recyclables being shipped overseas, the Chinese government imposed a strict percentage of acceptable contamination. The amount of foreign material allowed barely covered a label on a plastic drink bottle. As a result, recyclers were searching for domestic markets, warehouses were filling up, and market prices plummeted. Many municipalities and small collectors became more selective in what they collected and were wary of adding additional products for fear of not having the markets available to sell them. Although most did not sell directly overseas, their brokers did, and the mismatch in supply and demand brought the flow of recyclable exports to a screeching halt. This was the context when the recycling program in Wayne County, Indiana, was due for an update. Recycling in Wayne County The small recycling collection and processing program in Wayne County, Indiana, was already facing limitations on what it could collect, but that had more to do with physical space than anything markets halfway around the world were doing. The community has embraced recycling since the early 1990s but only collected a small variety of items. Early in its program, Wayne County built a sorting facility that accommodated a few of the more common recyclables: #1 and #2 plastic bottles, steel and aluminum cans, and, because it was popular in the 1990s, newspaper. Recycling has changed in many ways over those 30 years and even in the past several years. Mainly due to the Chinese ban—the Green Sword, as it was dubbed—domestic recycling facilities sprang up across the United States, and demand increased for several types of plastic. As part of a longer- term trend, both the demand for and the supply of newspaper has plummeted. Once a source for all our news, newspapers were decreasing as millennials and others have come to prefer Internet-based news services. And meanwhile, online shopping and home deliveries are now producing thousands of cardboard boxes daily. As the Indiana RCAP Solid Waste specialist became a part of the Wayne County program, prices for recycling were low. Some products had no value at all. However, the antiquated method of collection and processing was still getting the job done for them.
Wayne County
The hand-sorting process, although labor intensive, was producing a clean product. The machines were well-maintained, and the staff was friendly and seemed to genuinely enjoy their work. Recycling route drivers also would periodically back into the concrete structure to empty their loads of residential recycling. Then, unexpectedly, they parked their trucks, found what seemed to be their usual spot near the conveyor line, and helped sort the product they had just delivered. How clever it was that the drivers would have to take ownership of what they picked up: Because the trucks required hand-loading, the drivers knew not to pick up unacceptable items left curbside. The small Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) still accepted the five main items they had started with years before: steel and aluminum cans, plastic bottles and jugs, and paper. Items were picked up as dual-stream in double container trucks, and the number of products collected corresponded with the number of bins below the sorting line. Although small municipal operations like these are neither very efficient nor profitable, there was some merit to the city collecting and processing its own recyclables. City officials could take pride in their operations, and they provided employment for many drivers and sorters. These facilities also provided a drop-off location for businesses and residents outside the city limits and reached into the rural parts of the county that had substantial amounts of recyclables—particularly cardboard.
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