Recycling no longer profitable, shutting down

In West Virginia, an official of Kanawha County, which includes Charleston, the state capital, has called on residents to stockpile their own plastic and metals, which the county mostly stopped taking on Friday. In eastern Pennsylvania, the small town of Frackville recently suspended its recycling program when it became cheaper to dump than to recycle. In Montana, a recycler near Yellowstone National Park no longer takes anything but cardboard.

There are no signs yet of a nationwide abandonment of recycling programs. But industry executives say that after years of growth, the whole system is facing an abrupt slowdown.

NYT

Gosh, maybe the free markets are like drug addiction: you always need more and you never think of tomorrow.

That sure would be weird, if nature repeated similar patterns in different circumstances. Yep. Hmm.

Maybe we need values that trump profit. But that would require us to cooperate, or at least share a culture in common. Hmm.