Environment
How American Recycling Is Changing After China’s National Sword
Times have been hard for U.S. recycling since China tightened its contamination standards, and local programs are trying to adjust.
“This facility is our version of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.”
That’s how Eileen Kao described Montgomery County, Maryland’s recycling center on a tour. Kao, who is chief of waste reduction and recycling in the county’s Department of Environmental Protection, pointed out how machines in the facility help sort recyclables. As she described how the machines worked, a magnet separated steel and tin cans into a storage silo while a shaker table collected pieces of glass that were too small to be sorted. Dozens of workers hand-sorted at certain steps along the process.