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December 11, 2008
Trash has Crashed: Downturn in Recyclables Industry
The financial crisis is having effects on all parts of the real economy from car making to waste picking. It is estimated that 1-2 per cent of the urban population of the world lives off collecting and recycling paper, cardboard, plastic, and metal waste. Many of the waste pickers earn only poverty-level incomes; many are women and children.
Since the financial crisis, there has been a significant downturn in the market and prices for recyclable waste around the world. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, according to Sonia Dias who is doing her PhD on the sector, cardboard waste used to be sold for around half a Brazilian dollar (reais) - it now fetches only 14 cents or, in some areas, as little as one cent.
Across the USA, according to a December 7, 08 New York Times article, waste is accumulating by the ton in junkyards and warehouses. As the NYT article summarizes the situation: "Trash has crashed". This means that less waste will be sold to industries which recycle the waste and more will go to the landfills. It also means that those who live off picking, sorting, and recycling will lose their livelihoods or see their incomes plummet.
Please see the links below for additional stories on this "crash" from around the world:
December 8, 2008:
The Association of Recyclers in Bogota (ARB) provides report on the downturn in the recycling sector in Colombia. read more
December 8, 2008.
CATAUNIDOS - Network of Commercialization of 7 Waste Pickers' Associations From 7 Municipalities Within the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte. In response to a demand from the Minas Gerais State Waste and Citizenship Forum and the state representatives of the national movement of waste pickers to the Minister of Social Development, the Government of Brazil is using its food security programmes to address the emergency needs of the cooperatives. read more
December 7, 2008. New York Times, USA
Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up.
By Matt Richtel and Kate Galbraith
read more
Nov. 26, 2008. National Post, Canada
Recycling market collapse adds to cities' cash crunch
read more
Nov. 6, 2008. Times Online, USA
Recycling Waste Piles Up as Prices Collapse
read more
Oct. 31, 2008. Longford Leader
Chinese recycling market crash hits local firm
By Ailbhe Gillespie
read more
Oct. 31, 2008. Irish Times
Recycling market facing collapse, warns body
By Jason Michael
read more