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Where Waste Goes — Recycling is a commodity business
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When It Breaks0148
Where Waste Goes
Recycling is a commodity business
The global trade that handles what everyone throws away.
III · The Machinery45 / 53
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0148 · The Primer45 / 53
A bottle in a recycling bin is not recycled by good intentions. It is sorted, baled, priced, shipped, and remelted, and every step only happens while the material is worth more than the handling costs. When commodity prices fall, recycling stops paying and the same bottle goes to landfill.
- Contamination is the enemy. One greasy container can downgrade an entire bale, which is why sorting rules are so strict and so boring.
- Digging up old landfills showed that paper and food waste rot far more slowly than anyone expected. Buried rubbish is closer to an archive than a compost heap.
SourceRathje and Murphy, Rubbish! (1992)
Minter, Junkyard Planet (2013)
Minter, Junkyard Planet (2013)
Keep exploring
Because you read Where Waste Goes.
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III · The Machinery07 / 53
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The handful of raw materials that everything else is built from.
III · The Machinery15 / 53
When It Breaks0147
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The business of putting a number on rare, enormous losses.
III · The Machinery44 / 53