Business View Magazine Jan-2019

132 contamination. Because recycling rules vary for each municipality, it’s not always clear to residents what can and cannot be recycled. If what goes into the bin is not recyclable, it can contaminate what is re- cyclable in the bin, thus requiring the material to be sent to landfill.A blunt example: if you throw a dirty diaper in a recycling bin that also contains newspa- pers,what do you think happens to the newspaper? Those newspapers become contaminated and are no longer recyclable–they are nowwaste that must be diverted to the landfill.The goal of the recycling process is to create quality, graded material that can be sold to paper mills, steel mills, plastics manufac- turers, etc. for manufacture into new products. Suc- cessful recycling requires a quality recycling stream. “In addition to the contamination issue,we have a simple problem of supply and demand that will take another year or two to sort itself out.With 40 percent of the export market disappearing,we need to find newmarkets for that material. It’s a commod- ity–when the demand side decreases, the supply keeps flowing, and prices decrease.That’s what’s happening with scrap.” BVM: What other issues are at the top of the agen- da? Wiener: “Understanding the difference between waste and scrap is a critical issue when talking to