2018 and 2019 were a tough time for selling recycled materials.
"At the end of 2018 into 2019... the market crashed. It was horrible, as far as pricing and getting rid of material," said Scott O'Neal, owner of CW Recyling in Jefferson Parish. "It's a commodities market, so it fluctuates."
For some residents who recycle every day, reports of a poor market for recyclables make them wonder if their efforts are in vain.
Mary Godshall, of Metairie, wrote to Curious h recently to ask what, exactly, happens to , aluminum cans and cardboard boxes that citizens set out for the recycling truck.
"The world is filling up with plastic. You hear about the plastic filling up the ocean. That’s the little bit we can do, Godshall said. “I’m just hoping that whatever they’re doing with it, that it’s worthwhile instead of being thrown in a special dump somewhere."
The Department of Environmental Quality started doing annual recycling reports in 2018 to track how much waste is produced overall and how much is diverted from landfills.
In the most recent report, for 2021, about 3% of all 9.8 million tons of the state's waste was diverted from landfills.
In the 20 out of 64 parishes that reported recycling activity, including Orleans and Jefferson, about 9% of their 2.9 million tons of waste was recycled. These 20 parishes constitute just over half of the state's population.
The DEQ is still collecting data for 2022.
The national average for waste diverted from the landfill is about 31% as of 2018, according to the EPA.
O'Neal said the market has recovered a bit since 2019. But his facility is on the smaller side and recycles 1,500 tons of waste a month, or 18,000 a year. He said some bigger facilities process 10,000 tons of recyclable waste a month.
The first step in recycling is collection. Those who recycle should be familiar with sorting through potentially recyclable material to make sure it is recyclable in your city or parish, and thus won’t contaminate the rest of the batch.
A Department of Environmental Quality representative outlined three main rules for h:
- Recycle bottles, cans, paper and cardboard.
- Keep food and liquid out of your recycling.
- No loose plastic bags and no bagged recyclables
Once recyclables are put in the bin and left on the curb, they’re collected by a private hauler or government entity. In Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, recycling collection is contracted out to other companies.
Curbside recycling is collected in unincorporated Jefferson Parish and the Town of Jean Lafitte once per week by Waste Connections, the parish’s contracted waste hauler.
In New Orleans, IV Waste covers Mid-City and upriver of the Industrial Canal, Waste Pro collects in New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward, Richard's collects Uptown and in Algiers, and KBS collects downtown and in the French Quarter.
The second part of recycling is processing. The materials are transported by the collector to a processing facility, such as a materials recovery facility, where recyclables are sorted, cleaned of contaminants, and prepared for transport to another facility.
In New Orleans, recycling from Richard's Disposal, Waste Pro and KBS are brought to CW Recycling, located in Elmwood next to the Huey P. Long bridge.
For recycling picked up from homes, CW Recycling uses a single-stream process. All of the mixed-together materials are dumped out, and people take out things that can't be recycled. Then, cardboard, plastics, and aluminum are separated by a machine so that it can be baled.
"A baler compacts the material into 13 to 2000 pound cubes. That's how we get a certain amount of tonnage on a truck," said O'Neal. "You would never be able to get that much weight in if you pt it in loose."
Recycling from Jefferson Parish is hauled to Waste Connection’s processing facility located on Peters Road in Harvey, where it is sorted, bailed and marketed in the region.
The third part is remanufacturing. After all necessary processing is complete, recyclables are made into new products at recycling plants. Sometimes this step is carried out at other facilities, such as paper mills or bottle manufacturers.
Recyclable materials collected by Richard's Disposal, Waste Pro and KBS are processed by CW Recycling in Jefferson. Recyclable materials collected by IV Waste are processed by Republic Services in Baton Rouge.
Other materials recovery facilities in h, according to the DEQ, are Marck Industries’ recycling facility in Monroe, Pratt Recycling in Shreveport, St. Landry Parish Solid Waste Disposal in Opelousas and Eunice, West Monroe Recycling Center in West Monroe and Xpress Recycling in Alexandria and Vidalia.
