South Korea Experiencing Plastic Recycling Crisis

It looks like some apartment complexes in South Korea are having mountains of recyclable waste building up around them as private companies are having a harder time making money from recycling the waste:

As the confusion over recyclables continues in apartment complexes in Seoul and Gyeonggi, the Ministry of Environment on Thursday began an emergency round of checkups to find out which private companies are refusing to retrieve plastic and Styrofoam waste.

Forty-eight private recycling companies announced last week they would no longer retrieve plastic and foam waste because they could no longer make a profit from it. Paper collection was not affected.

The announcement threw people into confusion over how to discard their recyclables until Monday, when the Environment Ministry said in a statement that after negotiations, all 48 waste disposal companies agreed to resume regular services.

But the agreement may not have been as final as the ministry thought.

According to the Gyeonggi provincial government on Wednesday, 20 out of 31 local governments in the province said the companies were collecting recyclables the same way as before.

The rest are “in the process of negotiating.”

“We are in the process of negotiating to resume regular services, but some apartment complexes may experience inconveniences for a while,” said an official from the Resource Recirculation Division of the Gyeonggi provincial government. “We will try to reach agreement as soon as possible, and if we cannot, then we will have the city governments and county offices provide the services instead.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but the main issue appears to be the decision by China to cut the import of many types of recyclable waste.  China had been taking the waste and making solid fuel pellets for it to burn in factories or heat homes, but to decrease air pollution they have cut the import of the recyclables.