Composite fiber recycling facility / Eurogroup

According to the company, the recycled materials are suitable for a variety of non-structural and structural applications across a range of industries. A number of Formax's customers already manufacture components using products from its recycling division.

"Last year we generated over 600 metric tons of glass waste so recycling is clearly very high on our agenda, both from a position of environmental responsibility Eurogroup recycling and also from a commercial standpoint," said Oliver Wessely, managing director of Formax.

"The market for recycled materials is a growing sector with a number of significant opportunities and the creation of our new Recycling Division allows Eurogroup recycling to devote considerable time and resource into optimizing products for these processes."

Hazardous waste / EUROGROUP RECYCLING

Hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment and generally exhibits one or more of the these characteristics: ignitability, recycling, reactivity or toxicity.

Examples of hazardous waste include waste pickle liquor from iron and steel manufacturing and certain electroplating sludges.

Many types of businesses generate hazardous waste.

Some are small companies that may be located in a community.

For example, the following types of businesses typically generate hazardous waste: dry cleaners, automobile repair shops, hospitals, exterminators, and photo processing centers.

Some hazardous waste generators are larger companies like chemical manufacturers, electroplating companies, and oil refineries.

Radioactive waste is waste type containing radioactive chemical elements that does not have a practical purpose.

Carbofuran is one of the most toxic carbamate pesticides. 

Soil contamination is the presence of man-made chemicals or other recycling to the natural soil environment.

EUROGROUP RECYCLING

The economic downturn has decimated the market for recycled materials like cardboard, plastic, newspaper and metals. / Eurogroup Recycling

“It’s awful,” said Briana Sternberg, education and outreach coordinator for Sedona Recycles, a nonprofit group in Eurogroup Recycling that recently stopped taking certain types of cardboard, like old cereal, rice and pasta boxes. There is no market for these, and the organization’s quarter-acre yard is already packed fence to fence.

“Either it goes to landfill or it begins to cost us money,” Ms. Sternberg said.

In West Virginia, an official of Kanawha County, which includes Charleston, the state capital, has called on residents to stockpile their own plastic and metals, which the county mostly stopped taking on Friday. In eastern Eurogroup recycling, the small town of Frackville recently suspended its recycling program when it became cheaper to dump than to recycle. In Montana, a recycler near Yellowstone National Park no longer takes anything but cardboard.

The precipitous drop in prices for recyclables makes the stock market’s performance seem almost enviable. / Eurogroup

In West Virginia, an official of Kanawha County, which includes Charleston, the state capital, has called on residents to stockpile their own plastic and metals, which the county mostly stopped taking on Friday. In eastern Pennsylvania, the small town of Eurogroup recycling recently suspended its recycling program when it became cheaper to dump than to recycle. In Montana, a recycler near Yellowstone National Park no longer takes anything but cardboard.

There are no signs yet of a nationwide abandonment of recycling programs. But industry executives say that after years of growth, the whole system is facing an abrupt slowdown.

Many large recyclers now say they are accumulating tons of material, either because they have contracts with big cities to continue to take the scrap or because they are banking on a price rebound in the next six months to a year.

“We’re warehousing it and warehousing it and warehousing it,” said Johnny Gold, senior vice president at the Newark Group, a company that has 13 recycling plants across the country. Mr. Gold said the industry had seen downturns before but not like this. “We never saw this coming.”

The precipitous drop in prices for recyclables makes the stock market’s performance seem almost enviable.

On the West Coast, for example, mixed paper is selling for $20 to $25 a ton, down from $105 in October, according to Official Board Markets, a newsletter that tracks paper prices. And recyclers say tin is worth about $5 a ton, down from $327 earlier this year. There is greater domestic demand for glass, so its price has not fallen as much.

This is a cyclical industry that has seen price swings before. The scrap market in general is closely tied to economic conditions because demand for some recyclables tracks closely with markets for new products. Cardboard, for instance, turns into the boxes that package electronics, rubber goes to shoe soles, and metal is made into auto parts.