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Recycle crisis impacts small Centralia business

When China stopped buying the world's discarded plastics, it threw markets into turmoil. Small town recycling businesses have been hit hard.

CENTRALIA, Washington — China stopped taking most of America's recyclables last year, and it has sparked a crisis in the recycling industry.

In the United States, small town and rural recycling operations have been hit the hardest.

Related: Pierce County will no longer accept shredded paper for recycling

Lisa Bluhm owns Puget Sound Fiber, a small cardboard recycling business in Centralia, Washington. Bluhm took over the business over after her husband died unexpectedly last year. Now her son Cameron runs it.

Puget Sound Fiber used to recycle all kinds of products: glass, copper, batteries, but only cardboard was profitable. In fact, they were having to pay to get rid of the other items.

"It has been such a challenge trying to run a business of recycling with nowhere to send the recyclables," Bluhm said.

Here's how it works: Puget Sound Fiber drops off recycle bins at commercial businesses. The businesses fill up the containers with cardboard. PSF picks up the containers and brings them back to the recycling plant. There, workers sort the cardboard, bail it up and send it off to the next place - either a local mill or to another country. 

Other countries used to buy recyclable materials at a higher price than plants in the U.S. That's not happening anymore. Now it's much more expensive to send the materials to other countries.

"The reason we're having a hard time exporting it to other countries is that people aren't playing by the rules. They're sending [other countries] garbage and contaminated materials," Cameron Bluhm said. 

According to Waste Management, America's largest recycler, the average recycling contamination rate is 25%. That means one in four of the items thrown in a recycling bin isn't actually recyclable. 

"The cost is too high to clean it, and make up for everybody's lack of recycling properly...it's driven the business into the ground - the whole industry," he said.

Garbage ends up PSF's recycle bins too. If dirty cups, plastic bags and soiled containers get missed by sorters, the garbage gets into the grinders and clogs up the gears and chains.

PSF has been in business since 1978, but the future of the business is in jeopardy. Local mills that buy the cardboard bundles are getting inundated with discarded materials. 

For now, bundles and bundles of cardboard are stacking up at the recycling plant, and the business is bleeding money. Cameron said he recently had to lay off a worker who has been with the company for many years.

Related: Shoreline weighs plan to fine poor recyclers

Cameron said at the very least, people need to be more conscious about recycling correctly. 

"I'm not out here saying 'let's open more recycle facilities, let's make me more money.' I want people to stop using so much stuff. Keep reusing things. Take pride in what you have and stop tossing them." 

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