Local recycling startups aim to shrink the trash pile
The old-school approach to recycling was to ship the discarded material to distant processing plants, typically overseas. But that system suffered major disruption last year, largely because China, as part of an anti-pollution crackdown, decided to stop importing most paper and plastic recyclables. That presented an epic question: Where to process all this stuff?
The answer lies close to home, judging by several Brooklyn and Queens startup companies that have pioneered ways to recycle everything from fabric to computers. “The waste industry is starting to come into a closed loop,” says Marisa Adler, a consultant at Resource Recycling Systems, who believes that in the next few years the industry will evolve on a local level.
“We’re really starting to realize that it’s all connected — through supply chains, through our limited natural resources — and I think that we’re going to start seeing more systems where the materials are recovered and the emerging technologies and startups are finding ways to more efficiently integrate recovered materials and resources back into products.”