California's Recycling Crisis Sends Billions of Bottles and Cans Into Landfills

摘要

About 90 percent of the 8 billion soda cans sold in California every year get turned in for recycling and a 5 cent refund. But cheaper commodity prices, plus lower Chinese demand for America's used bottles and cans, have upended the economics of the state's recycling industry. Over the past two years, California's recycling rate has fallen enough to relegate more than 2 billion containers a year to landfills.