From Resource Recycling, by Colin Staub

​The head of Waste Connections says the economics of recycling must change. Otherwise, companies’ sorting costs will further outpace the revenue they fetch from commodity sales.

During a keynote session at WasteCon 2018 last week in Nashville, Tenn., Ron Mittelstaedt, CEO of Waste Connections, also delved into the impact China’s import restrictions have had on his company.

Mittelstaedt noted single-stream programs are seeing anywhere from 20 to 30 percent contamination, which is a “huge problem.” He declined to opine on whether single-stream programs should revert to dual stream, but he stressed that China’s contamination standard of 0.5 percent is not realistic under the current economics of the industry. Getting contamination even down to less than 2 to 3 percent is “incredibly difficult.”

Continue Reading...