White County Entering Contract To Keep Plastics Out Of Landfill

The recycling market has fallen on hard times with the shrinking demand for plastics.

White County Executive Denny Wayne Robinson said it reached a point to where the county was denying recycling company’s requests to dump their plastics. Robinson said without plastic buyers, the recyclables end up going to waste.

However, Robinson said recently White County has found a solution.

“We have just entered into a contract with a company that’s going to start picking up our plastics,” Robinson said. “Now we will not be getting any revenue off of them but it will keep it out of our landfill.”

Robinson said there’s a correlation between plastics and crude oil. He said if people watch prices at the pump, it will show whether the plastic recycling market is returning.

“When gas gets up to knocking on the door of $4 a gallon, upper $3 a gallon then your plastic recyclables become desirable at that point,” Robinson said. “It’s basically based off crude oil. As gas rises, the demand for plastic recyclables rises but gas has been cheap recently the past four or five years. Plastics weren’t bringing anything in.”

For other products, he said there is always a market for metals and cardboard is making a comeback as a revenue generating recyclable. However, he said a shift in the market occurred when China changed its intake of recyclables.

“China was the biggest buyer and they stopped,” Robinson said. “To my knowledge I don’t know of them being back but China was the biggest buyer and that’s where everything was going. When they stopped buying it, the bottom just dropped out.”

Robinson said it reached a point where China was sending recyclables back to the companies they contracted with. Although, Robinson said he sees a light at the end of the tunnel for the recycling market.

“This is a matter of time, technology is advancing everyday,” Robinson said. “Even in the trash world, the solid waste world and some bright young person is going to come up with a use for this and hopefully change the world when they do.”