When you throw old cardboard boxes or empty soda bottles in a recycling bin, you’re contributing to an industry that’s responsible for more than 52,000 jobs in Pennsylvania. And recycling companies are taking steps to publicize their growing contribution to the commonwealth’s economy.
“A lot of people really believe that all this valuable material is being landfilled,” says Michele Nestor, chair of the board at the Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center, which develops markets for recycled materials. Many garbage trucks, she adds, have separate sections for trash and recyclable materials that are later sorted.
Nestor explains that while the industry once dividing materials into things that can be recycled and everything else, now it is shifting to an emphasis on finding new uses for nearly everything the average person considers trash. “The last thing you want to do is throw it away,” she says.
Earlier this month the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association, which represents haulers, recyclers and landfill operators, hosted an event at the state Capitol with the Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center. The event, called the Pennsylvania Recycling Industries Congress, displayed how companies throughout the state are turning unwanted materials into new products. Nestor says that’s the most important step in the recycling process.
And Pennsylvania companies are finding innovative uses for unwanted scraps. USA Gypsum in Reinholds takes scrap drywall and turns it into bedding for farm animals, and FiberAmerica in Allentown converts old newspaper into insulation. LVH Industries in McAdoo makes products like sandblasting material and water filtration media from recycled glass.
In 2009 the Northeast Recycling Council did a study that found recycling generates a little more than 52,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, resulting in $2.2 billion in payroll. That’s an increase from 2007, when a study from the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association found that recycling was responsible for about 31,000 jobs statewide. In recent years private businesses in Pennsylvania have spent $66 million on new recycling facilities and equipment.
Sources: Michele Nestor, Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center; Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen