where does Somerville recycling go?

[elusiveat]

In contrast with lots of places in the U.S., Somerville still has a pretty comprehensive list of items that can be put out for curbside recycling:
https://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/environmental-service-guide.pdf

Does anybody know where this stuff actually ends up?

There's been a lot of media coverage of how U.S. recycling has been disrupted by China turning away recycling, but it's not clear to me how this plays out for Somerville. The stuff I've found online about Massachusetts recycling indicates 1) that recycling is getting *more expensive* for municipalities, and 2) that contamination of recycling with non-recyclables is a bigger problem than it used to be. I haven't found anything either confirming that uncontaminated recycling will actually get recycled *or* stating that it won't.

Does anybody have good information on whether our "recyclables" are actually being recycled, where this recycling is happening geographically, or what they get recycled into?

Comments

[elusiveat]

Thanks.

I'm really curious about how all of this is shaking out. I feel like the site you link to is more information for municipalities to decide how to handle things then information for residents to make sense of the whole thing. And still, the focus seems to be in increased costs and avoidance of contamination. I do think I saw something somewhere about China rejecting recycling loads that were more than _% contaminated, so I wonder if partly it's not so much "China won't recycle anymore" as "China is insisting on higher standards." I think I also saw something about some places in the U.S. stockpiling theoretically recyclable materials until such time as the market changes again.

I feel like things ought to be clearer than they are!

[3rdragon]

I wonder if partly it's not so much "China won't recycle anymore" as "China is insisting on higher standards."

That's my understanding. Something like, "Most US MRFs can only produce 95% uncontaminated recycling, and Chinese recyclers are insisting on 98% uncontaminated" (numbers made up, though not totally off the wall) and because all of our plants aimed for 95%, we don't have anywhere capable of producing 98%. I've also heard that other countries may be looking to step into the gap, but of course it takes time to ramp up production and that's not a sustainable solution either.