| GRN Recycle Talk FAQ Answer |
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 96 13:14 WET From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Recycling (Sandi or Sandra)
December 4, 1996
Dear Sandra,
Profitability comes and goes with supply and demand internationally for most recycled commodities for nonhazardous wastes. Other microeconomic factors besides supply and demand intervene as well. The most profitable thing to recycle from the nonhazardous waste universe is metals. Why? On an ongoing historical basis, demand is always up because there are always resource-poor consumers, be they nations, regions, industries, or other applications like construction, in need of inexpensive sources of supply.
Major profitability is to be had from the recycling of high cost-of-extraction materials such as aluminum, iron, zinc. On an ongoing basis for the entire post-World War II period, there has been a market for these materials reuse or recycling, whether or not a recycling program was in place. Junk and scrap yards make their livings off of these materials as well as these materials shaped into consumer goods, such as motor vehicle parts.
The extraction of other metals from consumer and industrial products - gold, platinum, rhodium, titanium, etc. is also lucrative, but requires a much higher degree of sophistication for extraction and reuse.
There is a huge export market for these materials; however, these aren t the largest waste/scrap commodity that is exported; paper and paperboard is, because much of the world is resource-poor for sources of paper. However, paper recycling is only highly profitable during exceptional circumstances in the business ellipse, and mostly is just barely profitable, unless scale and economy are unprecedented.
I hope that this answers your question. I should mention that the Research Library for RCRA, US EPA-New England, will soon have a report on the impact and process of exporting scrap materials, conducted this summer by an Intern, for dissemination. We at the Solid Waste Program (and contractors) expect the report to be available shortly after New Year s.