NY TIMES Recycling Market Plummets - more reasons to reuse!

November 27, 2008, 7:26 am

Recycling Market Plummets

By Kate Galbraith

Exports of paper from the Port of Long Beach in California have come to a screeching halt. China has an oversupply of the stuff, because Americans aren’t ordering the products made from it. (Photo: Jaime Rector for The New York Times)

As millions of Americans toss their wine bottles, plastic containers and newspapers into recycling bins this long Thanksgiving weekend, they may be blissfully unaware of a big problem: recyclers are running out of money.

Prices for recycled materials like plastics, paper and metals have plunged in the last two months, endangering some programs.

In Oregon, haulers of mixed recyclables once collected $40 to $50 a ton from the plant. Now the situation is reversed, and sometimes the haulers must actually pay the plant to accept their wares, according to The Oregonian. In Denver, a local TV station reports that the city could take a $100,000 hit from the drop in prices. Seattle has also been hurt.

The Oregonian reports:

Most categories of recycled plastic, paper, newspaper and cardboard have also seen steep price declines as domestic and overseas demand plunged.

The price for bales of mixed paper has fallen by 90 percent since September, according to Official Board Markets, the paper industry’s pricing bible. Prices for plastic bags and other plastic “film” have dropped by two-thirds in less than a month.

Waste Management, one of the biggest recycling processors in the country, has also been hurt by the recycling slowdown. In its third-quarter results, released a month ago, the chief executive, David Steiner, said, “We currently estimate that our recycling line of business could negatively impact earnings per share by as much as $0.03 in the fourth quarter.”

cork wedges

Move over Birkenstocks! Here comes pre-cycled cork soled wedges with paper wine bag tops.

for this prototype I used 3m FoamFast – a spray foam – to secure the corks and High Solid Gel – a Golden gel medium – to glue the paper together.

cork

Cork hails from the bark of the Cork Oak tree, Quercus Suber. Produced extensively in Portugal and Spain. Once the trees are about 25 years old the cork is stripped from the trunks every 9 years. The trees live for about 200 years.

cork is:
biodegradable, natural, and renewable
fire resistant
provides insulation
expandable and impermeable insuring excellent bottle stopping qualities
Dom Perignon, a French Benedictine monk, is rumored to be the first to use cork in a bottle of Champagne [1668]. Before cork, it had been a common practice to close bottles with a piece of wood wrapped in hemp previously dipped in olive oil.

highly reuse-able
Some sites in the USA offer wine cork recycling. Whole Foods in Northern California has a drop off station. Wine corks are granulated and turned into products such as pin boards, tile, engine gaskets, hockey balls, safety mats, and boat decks. Recently, wine cork has even been used in rocket technology. Even cork dust can be used for fuel and cork residue can be used to make other cork products.

Bathing Suits Made of Cork
Source: Mechanix Illustrated
Issue: Nov, 1939

You're invited to our science fair on Monday 12/8, 5-8pm! Our Contemporary Issues class will be showcasing our visualization and world saving projects. Don't miss it!

form studio tutu

For Form Studio this semester with Martin Veninsky I went through quite a process documented by the Grad Studio B&W printer. Since my theme became the movement of shape in space, I decided my printout pre-cycle project would best be showcased as a tutu.

This project stared by randomly picking a streamer and a ruler which at the end of the term morphed into my exploration of a line with endpoints bending in space. This began my exploration into the forth dimension that I am working with today.

At 10¢ per printout this dress is probably worth $3.70 in materials.

materials: form studio printouts, sewing machine, tape, stapler