A funny thing happened to Marion County recycling a few months back. The global market made itself known in the oddest way in that all the material that the U.S. was recycling suddenly had nowhere to go easily. For years, China was a big consumer of recycled material from the U.S. However, in 2019, the Asian country suddenly shut off the flow, refusing to take more bulk. That had a ripple effect all the way back to the recycling points across the U.S. in people’s neighborhoods.

A Global Policy Changed Local Recycling Rules

While traditional materials like aluminum cans and glass bottles were still good, other materials were not. And this has shown up in various programs as changes in what materials people could put in their neighborhood recycle bin and what now had to be put in the trash bin. A lot of the fuss has since shaken out, and recycling services are still running strong, but the whole incident woke people up to how connected we are all becoming now with goods and materials in trade, including recycled materials.

The Recycling Program is Still Operating

Marion County recycling still exists and is running strong, it is just not accepting as many different materials as it used to. While there is no argument that lots of materials can be recycled, there still has to be a place to send it to for actual processing and reforming. The gap leaves open a vacuum for a new solution, and it will be interesting to see what kind of new businesses fill that need in 2022. However, for now, Marion County homeowners need to filter out their recyclables a bit more for what’s okay in the blue bin and what is not.

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