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scooter
Penny Pincher Member
240 Posts |
 Posted - 03/15/2010 : 19:59:44
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This makes me want to get out there and really hit it hard.
read this article
Cardboard may seem like a common item, but that’s not the case at the Isabella County Recycling Center.
With cardboard prices at a new high, $137 per ton, the recycling center is pushing for cardboard recycling and has developed online tools to encourage businesses to recycle, Resource Recovery Manager Amy Shindorf said.
Newly launched on the recycling center’s Web site is custom business recycling information, Shindorf said.
In addition, the recycling center is now offering free waste audits and will help businesses design their recycling programs.
Several factors came together to cause the jump in price for recycled cardboard, Shindorf said.
Heavy snowfall on the east coast affected the supply collected there, coupled with heavy rain in the southern United States, which decreased the virgin pulp production, she said.
More importantly, a tax incentive program to reduce the amount of “black liquor,” a by-product of virgin pulp production, also resulted in the increase in price, Shindorf said.
Black liquor is spent cooking liquor from the kraft process when digesting pulpwood into paper pulp.
A tax provision originally intended to promote alternative fuels for motor vehicles was part of a 2005 highway bill and later expanded in the 2007 energy bill, Shindorf said.
That tax credit expired at the end of 2009, she said.
Although the credit helped distressed paper companies, it provided a significant financial incentive to run virgin containerboard mills versus recycled fiber paperboard mills, which impacts both cardboard supply and consumption, Shindorf said.
But that set of factors is not stable, Shindorf said, so she wants to get as much cardboard as possible now to take advantage of the higher selling price.
That, in turn, will help the recycling center with programs that benefit county residents, she said.
Because of a small window of opportunity to get top dollar for cardboard, Shindorf is urging businesses to recycle cardboard.
“We would like to ask that they consider recycling old files and stock piles they might have,” Shindorf said. “This is our attempt to get businesses interested.”
Shindorf is also using the rare opportunity to turn Isabella County’s trash into treasure.
When commodity prices increase, Shindorf wants the county to benefit.
She is urging residents to recycle all types of cardboard, not just corrugated.
“We at the recycling center are begging for cardboard,” Shindorf said. “A year ago, our cardboard prices were at an all-time low $25 per ton, which hits especially hard since cardboard make up more than half of the material we collect and sell.”
Since then, cardboard prices have increased to $137 per ton, and Shindorf believes that it could increase slightly this month.
“This is an all-time high since I have worked here,” she said. “In 2002, the highest price was $118 a ton.
“The interesting thing about these fluctuations in cardboard prices is that we might never see these high prices again and the reasons why there is such an increase right now in the Midwest.”
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cardboard scrap is skyrocketing
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