Even The Recycling Market Has Tanked!
Recycling goes from boom to bust as economy stalls
Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills’ demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.
Cardboard that sold for about $135 a ton in September is now going for $35 a ton. Plastic bottles have fallen from 25 cents to 2 cents a pound. Aluminum cans dropped nearly half to about 40 cents a pound, and scrap metal tumbled from $525 a gross ton to about $100.
It’s getting more difficult to find buyers in some markets, Steenstra said.
While few across the country appear to be taking such drastic measures as Steenstra, the recycling market has gotten so bad that haulers in Oregon and Nevada who were once paid for recyclables are now getting nothing or in some cases are having to pay to unload their wares.
In Washington state, what was once a multimillion-dollar revenue source for the city of Seattle may become a liability next year as the city may have to start paying companies to take their materials.
Some in the business are describing the downturn as the worst and fastest ever.
“It’s never gone from so good to so bad so fast,” said Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis Corp. in Pekin, Ill., who has been in the recycling business since 1975.
The turnaround caught everyone off guard, said Steven Kowalsky, president of Empire Recycling in Utica, N.Y.
“Nobody saw it coming. Absolutely nobody,” Kowalsky said. “Even the biggest players didn’t see it coming.”
How could they not have seen this coming? Steel, plastic, cardboard and aluminum are all recycled and in most cases are used the manufacturing industry, and if that market is down, it stands to reason that the scrap dealers will not have a market.
December 8, 2008 - 06:52 AM on December 8th, 2008
“How could they not have seen this coming? Steel, plastic, cardboard and aluminum are all recycled and in most cases are used the manufacturing industry, and if that market is down, it stands to reason that the scrap dealers will not have a market.”
I’m in the recycling business and even I saw it coming.
December 8, 2008 - 09:45 AM on December 8th, 2008
save the earth recycle a enviromentalists Yeah and all those eco-freaks and their stupid signs reading RECYCLE PAPER AND SAVE A TREE phooie on them eco-freaks screw tree huggers screw tree sitters