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Developing Recyclables Markets
Posted By Forester Media On March 27, 2013 @ 2:00 pm In Waste | No Comments
Written by Sara Bixby
Iowa is about as far from both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as you can get, not only in terms of geography but also
frequently in our approach to things. One of my teen-age nieces, who also lives in Iowa, grumbled recently that her doctor’s
office played “soothing ocean wave noises” in the background during a check-up. “I’m from Iowa,” she said. “I don’t
understand how ocean waves are calming. I’m not used to them, so they make me anxious and not calmed. Crickets and
combines might be a better idea.”
And yet, here in Iowa, we have a lot of companies that do business not only across the nation but also across an ocean, or at
least an international border. Her dad’s trucking company hauls into Canada. 3M has a super-hub (one of its six largest
manufacturing facilities) about 12 miles from where I live-3M sources, manufactures and sells both domestically and globally.
Pioneer, John Deere, Meredith Publishing, Vermeer-there’s a long list of Iowa-based companies as accustomed to business
outside the borders of the country as to business within the state. And we are just one state located a long way from either
ocean.
Even our recyclable materials have a high potential to make an overseas trip. Over time, more and more material collected in
the United States for recycling has been bought by and sent to overseas processors. In the May 2012 issue of MSW
Management, Chase Anderson and James Kulig reported that about half the collected recyclables from the United States are
exported. Jennifer Brown, in the October 2012 issue of Waste Advantage, cited a statistic that about $30 billion in recycled
commodities were sent overseas in 2010.
Genuine concern for the American economy as well as highly publicized issues like unprotected workers in India ripping apart
electronic wastes and China rejecting shipments of contaminated plastics help to spur the idea that we should be doing more to
develop US-based (domestic) manufacturers that will buy and then use the recyclable materials recovered from our national
wastestream, all without leaving the country.
How do we do that?
Long-time recycler and National Recycling Coalition Board of Directors member Mick Barry says the ultimate answer is to find a
way to bring manufacturing back to the United States, because the United States doesn’t currently have a use for a majority of
the materials we recover. “For recovered materials markets to succeed, bring primary manufacturing back to the United
States,” Barry said. “They will demand feedstock, which will drive demand.”
In their article, Anderson and Kulig suggested that one of two things would be necessary: barriers to export trade, or domestic
innovation.
Any of those answers seem to suggest the process of growing new domestic markets requires an understanding of the factors
that drive manufacturing and recovered materials out of the country and an understanding of the factors that, at least recently,
seem likely to draw some manufacturing back into the country.
At its most simple, manufacturing moves where the operating costs are less (Dolega, Michael. “Offshoring, Onshoring, and the
Rebirth of American Manufacturing.” TD Economics, October 15, 2012). Operating costs are a combination of things-cheap
labor rates, certainly, but also educated employees, the availability of raw materials, fewer regulations, lower taxes, greater
security, proximity to customers, and so forth.
For the past few decades, operating costs-seemingly focused on cheap labor and fewer regulations-have helped pull
manufacturing offshore. Originally, much of the manufacturing development was centered in China, but that has been slowing
now with faster gains in several southeastern Asian countries (Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.).
But those aren’t the only areas where manufacturing has moved, or the only opportunities in play. Reports have noted US
companies buying or expanding internationally to reach new markets, especially newly middle class consumers who want to
buy typical consumer goods.
Those moves also result from changing economic conditions, including but not limited to wage gains in foreign countries (to
pay newly middle class consumers), currency shifts, changing energy costs, challenges with quality control, and ease of doing
business. (Schakenbach, Jim. “More companies bring manufacturing back to US.” Boston Business Journal, August 22, 2012.)
It also seems likely that a rising middle class in overseas manufacturing centers will eventually have higher expectations for
things like safety and environmental protection, thus erasing some of the short-term benefit of manufacturing in a less
regulated country.
So how do we use that simplistic understanding of what drives manufacturing in general to benefit domestic recyclables
processing?
Advocating for legal barriers to the export of recovered materials doesn’t seem to have much chance of success. Go back and
put $30 billion in recycled commodities exported annually into perspective. The US Census Bureau reported that exports of all
goods in 2010 totaled just less than $1.3 trillion with $392 billion of that amount recorded as industrial supplies and materials
(the category where recyclable materials shipped as feedstock fit). Restricting sales in general or of specific recovered
materials only to those countries that satisfy some combination of US standards for wages, safety, or environmental protection
would interfere with decades of foreign investment and a long-standing flow of goods (including recovered materials) and
manufacturing to access customers both here and abroad.
I suspect that a voluntary program to restrict sales of recovered materials to domestic buyers is equally unrealistic. Recycling
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2. processors have to move the recyclables collected and sent to them. In the first stage of the recovery process (for instance, a
MRF in an Iowa county), the first buyer is likely to be somebody else located in the state or region. That may hold true for a
couple stages of sales, ensuring that the initial processor never sees the materials leave the country. Given a relatively short
attention span and waning interest by American consumers in paying more to be green, and processors will understandably
continue to sell where they can. (Neff, Jack. “Survey: Fewer consumers willing to pay to go green.” Advertising Age, January 2,
2013.)
With some possible gains in manufacturing base through onshoring and little realistic hope of legal or voluntary barriers to the
export of recovered materials, that leaves domestic innovation as a method for developing new onshore markets.
Unfortunately, domestic innovation doesn’t seem to be found in trying to answer the questions, “What wastestream material
should we go after next? What do we throw away that offers the next gold to be mined?” The answer to developing new
markets for recovered materials won’t be found in our wastestreams but rather in combining our approach to them with a
better understanding of where economic opportunities lie.
Instead of checking through waste characterization studies looking for the next big thing (mattresses, carpet, aseptic
packaging, aluminum pie plates) to keep out of the landfill, we will have to look at which recovered materials (raw material
substitutes) are needed by the manufacturers we hope to retain or attract. And then we may have to make changes in our
policies and collection and initial processing phases to be sure our materials meet their needs.
Some of our recyclables may continue to be shipped internationally. If they serve as a feedstock for an industry with low
margins where cheap labor and unregulated practices are competitive necessities, we may not find a way to create a
competitive domestic market.
So we have to consider what offers us competitive advantage over our international competitors. One recent onshoring study
identified a highly skilled, highly productive US labor force capable of working effectively with highly automated processes.
Given that advantage, let’s get involved in creating cost-competitive systems to recover and process increasingly complex
materials. We find it challenging, if not impossible, now to separate the various kinds of plastics in composite plastic materials.
How can our motivated, skilled work force help develop the automated processes that will handle not only layers of
miscellaneous plastic but also higher-tech challenges like microscopic circuitry integrated into clothing? (Clark, Anthony. “IC a
plastic future for smart clothing.” Plastic News. December 28, 2012.)
But my intention is not to send that work force back to the recycle bin to pull out another more complicated waste material.
The current approach to electronics waste recycling with the variety of discussions about how to protect data and certify
recycling, safety and security processes is well down that road.
To achieve the next level of domestic innovation, we have to step back.
Planned obsolescence-manufacturing with the idea that the product has a limited life and will need to be replaced with a newer,
better model-is a given in today’s technology world. But where manufacturers readily accept something has a finite life, they
must simultaneously plan for the end of that life stage-the recovery of the product. Extended producer responsibility may be a
step in that process, but only if it can help manufacturers perceive expired products as something other than an unwanted
burden.
Encouraging manufacturers to develop processes that welcome obsolete products as a returned feedstock with which to restart
the manufacturing process might be the right message. It might be the needed innovation that allows the United States to
make an advantage of its highly skilled work force, to address the need for raw materials, to streamline manufacturing
processes, to stay close to and continue selling to customers, and to grow domestic recovery markets.
But it may also be as far away from our current interests and abilities as ocean waves are from crickets and combines.
Contributing writer Sara Bixby is the director of the South Central Iowa Solid Waste Agency, and a member of MSW
Management’s Editorial Advisory Board.
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