Depending on where you are in the Adirondacks, you can toss the household stuff you think is recyclable into one bin and put it out by the curb, or you may need to carefully separate the bottles, cans, paper, etc. and cart them off to a collection center. In either case, everything then proceeds to … where exactly?
Various entities play a part in that throwaway afterlife: municipalities, private corporations, nonprofits, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), followed by a slew of “end markets”—glass factories, paper mills, grinders, assorted melting pots, all ending in new products on shelves—or, if things go wrong, the dump.
End markets (and prices they pay for recycled materials) are constantly changing. When China abruptly stopped accepting waste from the U.S. and Europe in 2018, container ships were
