Residential Recycling Is Being Dumped In Landfills, Faces A Crisis

Daily Detroit

On a recent episode of this podcast, I went on a brief side rant praising my local Meijer store for accepting plastic bags for recycling and had a minor freak-out over the looming global environmental crisis over our increasingly all-plastic everything.

That caught the attention of Joe Munem, a Daily Detroit podcast listener who works as director of government affairs and public relations with GFL Environmental USA, a trash hauler and recycling service.

He wrote us to say that municipal recycling programs have some very tough choices to make in the wake of official government actions by the People’s Republic of China, halfway around the world. It’s so bad, he said, that the city of Westland recently notified residents it has begun landfilling all the recyclable materials people put in their bins.

We had Munem drop by the Detroit Shipping Co. studio of Podcast Detroit, for some insight into the looming crisis facing residential recycling programs across the country.

It’s a fascinating discussion, and you can listen in the player above. Or, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. We’re on all the podcast things, in fact.

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