There is a Waste Crisis happening in the United States right now and No One Wants to Talk About It

Waste, recycling, and trash are piling up, and the United States’ waste management industries have no idea what to do with it.

For decades, waste in the United States was collected and sent off to China. More than 4,000 shipping containers of recyclables were sent there every day. This past year though, China’s made some changes. By 2020, China’s put a ban on accepting foreign waste and has already begun turning away ships. The Chinese government recently instituted a ban on 24 types of waste, including paper and plastic which has left many waste management companies with piling mounds and nowhere to send them.

In the United States alone, recyclables pile up at a rate of 66 millions tons every year. Roughly a third of this is sold to international countries, including to China. In 2017, China bought more than half of the scrap materials sold from the United States. All of a sudden though, things have changed. Now that China’s given the US the boot, there are few other places willing to accept this waste. Although Canada, Australia, the UK, and parts of Europe have also been affected, the United States has experienced the worst effects.

The plastics continue to accumulate and there’s no replacement buyer. Since the early 1990s, China was a firm partner in North America’s recycling industries. In fact, even with a group of countries playing a part, it’s unlikely the volume of plastics being exported from the US can be taken over. China’s new policy means, between now and 2030, more than 111 million metric tons of plastic waste will be produced with no place to go.

There is no way to predict what will happen in the United States from now until then. Why this isn’t a bigger story in the current media landscape is unknown – perhaps many assume a solution will present itself. At this point in time, it’s not clear whether one exists. Even with diversion to other countries, few regions have the infrastructure to process their own waste let alone what’s being delivered to them by international countries.

As it stands now, some recycling facilities in the United States have stopped sorting paper and plastics, and choosing instead to send them directly to a landfill. That’s the reality of recyclables in North America. When one doesn’t have the storage space, cannot send these recyclables elsewhere, and/or lack the means to process recyclables domestically to derive profit, the only option left is to shuffle them off to a landfill. Canada does this, just like the United States. As nations, we must figure out new ways to maximize our recycling and avoid this happening.

The waste crisis in the United States is growing and will continue to grow indefinitely. There is no way to change that. The only thing we can do in the face of tensions in the recycling and waste management industries is to come up with new ideas and changes to implement to create a better future. As we march on towards a more environmentally-friendly future, we hope real change is on the horizon for waste management stakeholders in the United States.

For waste management and recycling in Toronto, contact a representative at Core Mini Bins today.