Recyclers salvage local markets

In the last few months, demand for recycled materials like plastic, metals and paper has dropped—along with their price—and a Dec. 7 article in the New York Times noted that large recyclers around the country are unable to sell the large volume of materials they’ve collected. But on the West Coast, recyclers say they’ve got a few advantages over other regions: relatively strong local manufacturing and the initiative to create new markets for their goods.

“We haven’t been hit as badly in the downturn, because we have these local mills that continue to need paper,” says Peter Spendlow, a waste composition and recycling specialist at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He says businesses exporting outside the state are suffering more than those selling into the local market.

That’s in stark contrast to the market for plastics. “I haven’t moved any plastic in months,” says Terry Gillis, general manager of Recovery 1 Inc., in Tacoma, Wash. That’s largely due to the fact that the primary markets for recovered plastic were Chinese manufacturers, who have been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn.

The Northwest’s paper and steel mills still need paper to feed their operations, and they continue to work with local recyclers, says Betty Patton, resource director of the Association of Oregon Recyclers [see “Reshuffled supply chains,” Sustainable Industries, October 2008].

One recycler told Patton he’s still able to move 85 percent of his materials because of long-standing relationships with buyers. Yet recyclers that historically “shopped around” to get the best price for their material were the first to shut their doors in the downturn, according to Patton.

Developing such market connections is a key piece of the puzzle for many in the industry. “We must close the loop locally, i.e., local communities must take full responsibility for the waste we generate,” Gillis says. “The good news is that if we do it right, we will develop the ‘green’ jobs that can and should be an integral part of the new economy.” To that end, he’s currently seeking manufacturing partners for several recycled-content building products that would use construction and demolition waste his business collects. In 1991, the Oregon legislature inked the Oregon Recycling Markets Development Council into a landmark recycling bill (SB 66). Patton says the once-inactive council has come to life.