Paper Piling Up In Warehouses as Market Collapses

They should grind up the cardboard and sell it as an agricultural soil amendment. It'll improve the soil structure and capture carbon at the same time. Done.

Recycleing is not as you put it "bullshit." This is just a minor fluke. If if use all reusable containers there will still be recycalables. It's far better to recycle than to add to a landfill. You say it might end up in a landfill well might is better than definetly. Personally I find it offensive that a "treehugger" would call recycleing bullshit.

Of course now is the perfect time for a couple of creative folk to find other uses for all that stuff piling up and get into the market. Why wait for China to get back in the game? There's raw materials for all sorts of industries, projects and innovations lying around in piles now!

All that low-grade paper is valuable as a fuel in waste-to-energy plants. While recycling it is arguably the "best" end of life option for paper in many cases, WtE exploits the waste stream to displace a little coal. It's better and more economically feasible than simply trying to hang on to it until the commodity recovers its value.
Also, it's a shame to see all of those CDs in the trash. They're a good source of reflector material for solar cookers.

There is one major issue here. Why isn't there more demand for recycled materials here in the U.S? Why do we rely on China to take our recyclables back for reuse? We need to re-establish our own manufacturing companies that utilize the materials.

For starters, why do we still allow the majority of toilet paper, tissues, paper towels and office paper be made from virgin fiber?

Should we really have the right to wipe our arses with old growth trees? I have been using 100% recycled content toilet paper for years now, and I have yet to chaff my behind or get an infection.

How in the world can it still be cheaper to mine, refine and transport new materials when it is well established that recycling uses less energy?

Saturday is "America Recycles Day". Maybe next year it should be "America Uses Recycled Materials Day".

Close the Loop people!

probably not a good idea for their to be giant warehouses full of flammable paper sitting around likely unguarded and not protected w/ sprinklers...

"Dead Tree Edition" has an item about North American paper companies' slowness to realize and react to the sudden problem of excess recycled paper at http://deadtreeedition.blogspot.com/2008/11/awash-in-paper.html. It notes that the price of some recycled paper in the US is now negative; you have to pay somebody to take it off your hands.

DIdn't someone in Japan recently announce they developed a way to turn paper into ethanol?

Doesn't this seem like an opportunity for local industry? why does it need an Asian buyer? I know supply doesn't create demand, but really local recourses should equal local busines.

Recycling paper IS bullshit if you throw your paper into a recycling bin, it ends up in a storage facility, and instead of China buying it to make recycled paper boxes to ship us products (that we are no longer purchasing from them), the paper sits and sits, while those who have it are paying storage fees for keeping it, no one wants it, no one is actually recycling it into other products, and it eventually ends up in a landfill or incinerated, which is what you were trying to avoid by throwing it in the recycling bin in the first place. The ability to recycle and the potential benefits are not bullshit, but if no one is buying things, then no one is using boxes, for example, and no country is buying our paper to recycle. THAT is how it's suddenly become bullshit.
Throwing paper in a recycling bin has become nearly the same as throwing it into the trash.

"Recycleing is not as you put it "bullshit." "

Depends on where you're at. My office has recyling and trash bins in every cubicle. They cleaning people come by with one trash can and dump both in the trash. :(

Fortunately the drink machine vendors take care of the aluminum and plastic bottles (maybe they make some money off it?)

Paper is used for blown in insulation, so perhaps a local vendor could reuse the paper to make insulation and help people lower their utility bills in the process? No need to ship it to another country that way, and saves energy.

It all depends on where you live. There are several local markets for recycled paper that are still viable in the U.S. Typically, these operations are owned or subsidized by the paper industry itself. Where there is an active and viable local market, the materials will still be recycled.

I tend to think that this collapsing of the global recy materials market is temporary (2 years or so) until the surplus materials are used in India and China. That'll require the reversal of the global economic meltdown which is sure to happen eventually, but not immediately.

It is an opportunity for domestic innovation. Mr. Obama?

Recycling is not bullshit -- it is merely third priority, remember?
REDUCE
v
RE-USE
v
RECYCLE

I am trying to close the loop. I run the Reprographics Dept. for a large engineering firm and I just met with our Boise Paper Rep and OfficeMax about reducing our pricing on Recycled Paper so that I can get all of our offices to use it. My Boise Rep. has always told me that the only reason the cost was so high on recycled paper is because of the supply demand and China buying 50% of our recycled paper.

We are looking into getting into an agreement with Boise to buy our recycled paper directly from us instead of a recycling warehouse.