• What Goes Round Comes Round

There’s been a dramatic slump in the recycling market. Why? The market is just not there anymore. After a recent high, the recycling market has crashed right along with the global economic meltdown.

What, people are hanging onto their garbage? Nope.

Consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes has dropped, and so have steel and pulp mills’ demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.

Bring me the money? Not anymore.

Cardboard used to sell for $135 a ton, now it’s $35. Plastic bottles have gone from 25 cents to 2 cents a pound. Aluminum cans have dropped almost 50% to 40¢ a pound, and scrap metal has plummited from $525 a  ton to $100.

The recycling market has become so bad that dealers in Oregon and Nevada who were once paid for recyclables are now having to pay to unload their junk.

In Washington state, a multimillion-dollar revenue source for Seattle may become a liability next year and may have to start paying to have the stuff carted away.

Those in the know say no one saw it coming, not even the mob.

Last year, American world champion consumers created about 254 million tons of trash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They recycled about 150 million tons of it, including about 80 million tons of iron and steel, which by the way paid the salaries of 85,000 people.

Where does it go? Most of our junk is shipped to Asian countries. What do they do with it? Why use it to make products that are shipped right backed to us, of course.

What goes around really does come around.