Mar 30, 2009 4:02 pm US/Eastern
CBS 2 Goes Green: Recycling
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
The newspapers, magazines and junk mail you toss can be worth a lot of money. Maybe not to you, but to people in the paper market.
In fact, waste paper is one of this country's top exports and a source of income for cities like New York.
"We buy the paper from New York City. We process it through our own means and we sell it again externally on the open market," said Hank Levin of Pratt Industries.
The company has a 20-year contract with the City's Department of Sanitation to buy the Big Apple's unwanted paper. At their Staten Island mill they turn that paper into pulp then re-process it to make corrugated boxes.
"Whether it be a refrigerator box, or we make pizza boxes out here," Levin said.
But that's not the only use for your unwanted paper. Pratt Industries President Myles Cohen said of the 50 million tons of post consumer waste paper collected in this country last year, 18 million tons were sent directly overseas.
"There is a huge market for waste paper in India, China, etc. and it's the U.S. that's mainly responsible for the supply of that paper. A lot of countries that are growing right now don't have the infrastructure for recycling like the United States has," Cohen said.
In New York, recycled paper means cold, hard cash. In 2008 the City's waste paper was sold for more than $10 million. Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said due to the weak economy, however, that amount will be slashed by nearly a third this year.
"The problem today is the market seems to be falling apart, compared to when for example paper was earning us maybe $100 per ton," Doherty said.
Projections for this fiscal year have the city earning $28 per ton for its paper, because demand is down both in this country and overseas.
This recession has forced some newspapers and magazines to go out of business or to downsize. Also, as fewer people shop for new products the demand for paper to make bags and boxes has dropped.
But the City of New York still has to dispose of the 2.5 million pounds of paper it collects each week.
"At the end of the day if I got a truck load of recyclables I need some place to put it. How can I get rid of it? I don't want to put it in a landfill," Doherty said.
That's where long term contracts with recycling companies like Pratt come in to play.
"There's always going to be a safe haven for that paper even if its not worth anything," Cohen said.
When the City loses money on recycling, it impacts the Sanitation Department's general operating budget, but Commissioner Doherty says New York is committed to recycling even when it isn't profitable.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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