Paper recycling is booming locally. We've gone from routine curbside pickup to having local charities sponsoring public deposit bins. The statistics at the AF&PA continue to show progress and there must be a mild shortage at the moment. They are paying $5/ton for mixed newspaper and magazine quality. The export business is shipping a lot of used paper to China. The ships and containers would otherwise return empty, so shipping costs are very low in that direction. Now I have to choose between reducing the town's recycling costs for the money losing bottles and cans, or pick a charity.
Cardboard recycling must be approaching its theoretical limit. The last I heard there was a limit somewhere between 80% and 90% due to contamination loss and processing damage.
There is probably some interesting statistics at work in some of the other categories as well. They hint at the issue in explaining that they are attempting to adjust the newspaper/magazine category to reflect the changing mix of paper types in catalogs, inserts, etc.
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