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increase in the cost of recycling

3/15/2019

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.
 
There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report.  This way the teacher has the option!  Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout. 
 
A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you. 
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”
 
You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now.  It’s a great resource!
 
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
 
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !
 
“Many US cities, towns, and counties are now incinerating up to half of their recycled plastic and paper because China, which used to buy 40 percent of US recyclable no longer accepts most of them.  As a result, the cost of disposing of recyclables is soaring.”
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/21/philadelphia-covanta-incinerator-recyclables-china-ban-imports
 
“For more than 25 years, many developed countries, including the U.S., have been sending massive amounts of plastic waste to China instead of recycling it on their own.

Some 106 million metric tons — about 45 percent — of the world's plastics set for recycling have been exported to China since reporting to the United Nations Comtrade Database began in 1992.

But in 2017, China passed the National Sword policy banning plastic waste from being imported — for the protection of the environment and people's health — beginning in January 2018.

Now that China won't take it, what's happening to the leftover waste?

According to the authors of a new study, it's piling up.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/623972937/china-has-refused-to-recycle-the-wests-plastics-what-now
“By 2030, an estimated 111 million metric tons of plastic waste will be displaced because of China's new law, the study estimates. This is equal to nearly half of all plastic waste that has been imported globally since 1988.”
 
“China’s 40 years of economic growth has pushed the country’s carbon dioxide emissions to the highest in the world, and left China dealing with terrible smog and water and other pollution. Its economy now is the second largest of all nations, about two-thirds of the U.S. output last year. China has less need for imported scrap material, though some economists question whether fewer recyclables could result in a slowdown. At the same time China banned imported trash, it announced plans to step up enforcement of recycling within the country.”
 
This article contains an interesting 7-minute video segment outlining the problems the recycling business.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/business/US-Struggles-With-What-to-Do-With-Tons-of-Recycled-Material-489971551.html?_osource=taboola-recirc
“The shift doesn't bode well for the future of recycling. After years of conditioning Americans to throw all their reusable containers and paper in bins, cities across the U.S. are now imposing higher collection fees, eliminating items they are willing to pick up, or in a few cases, weighing whether to curtail recycling altogether.
 
It isn't good news for the environment. Roughly 35 percent of the U.S.' total waste is diverted to recycling from the overall solid waste stream. That's millions of tons of materials that can be reused rather than having to use virgin materials. It also saves on the energy and effort required to make new items from scratch. ” 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/23/recycling-crisis-has-come-holidays/2054199002/
 
“For sure, the 900 tons of trash dumped at all hours of the day and night, five days a week, on the conveyor belts at the plant in Elkridge, Maryland—an hour's drive from the US capital—are not clean.

Amid the nerve-shattering din and clouds of brown dust, dozens of workers in gloves and masks—most of them women—nimbly pluck a diverse array of objects from the piles that could count as ‘contaminants.’

That could be anything from clothes to cables to tree branches to the bane of all recyclers: plastic bags, which are not supposed to go in recycling bins because they snarl up the machinery.

‘We've had to slow our machinery, and hire more people’ to clean up the waste, says Michael Taylor, the head of recycling operations for Waste Management, the company that runs the plant.

At the end of the sorting line is the end product—huge bales of compacted waste containing paper, cardboard or plastics.
These have been bought up for decades by businesses, most of them based in China, which clean them up, crush them and transform them into raw materials for industrial plants.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-trash-piles-china-door-recycling.html
 
“ ‘Recycling is not free and I think for many, people think that,’ said Kevin Kelly, general manager at Recology CleanScapes, a recycling company that sorts materials in Seattle.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Kelly said it costs money to run the trucks, the machines and to pay the people to turn our recycling into a commodity.

Until recently, the cost to collect and sort recycling was less than the revenue gained from selling the materials.

Recycling was profitable, especially the sale of mixed paper. In the summer of 2017, according to Brad Lovaas, executive director of the Washington Refuse & Recycling Association recyclers could sell a ton of mixed paper for about $100.

Now with China banning the import or several types of recyclables-the price plummeted to zero and, in some cases, recyclers have to pay for materials to be processed.

‘After all that effort and expense you’re left with a product that has no value,’ said Keller. ‘Some of it is less than zero, you have to pay to get rid of it.’ “
https://q13fox.com/2018/07/20/new-chinese-recycling-restrictions-increase-garbage-bills/
 
Your students may be interested because recycling has been encouraged from their early days in school.
 
This might be a topic of classroom homework assignment, discussion or even debate.
 
*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom.  Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
 
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
 
Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Have a great weekend!

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    Marjorie R. Heesemann is a chemistry teacher with 15 years of experience who is now working to develop resources for the Chemistry classroom.

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