Oregon is serious about recycling. 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 — including several in Oregon — 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 a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import “foreign garbage.” Since Jan. 1 it has banned imports of various types of plastic and paper, and tightened standards for materials it does accept.
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Dump it here on the Eastern Shore, will fit right in with the rest of the trash here!
ReplyDeleteWhy don't we do what we used to do in the 1960s?
ReplyDelete"Sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms. Give the ship a clean sweepdown fore and aft. Dump all trash and garbage over the after starboard catwalk."
Does anyone else remember what that is?
They should let us know how much they are dumping in the Atlantic.
ReplyDelete