How is recycling profitable for recyclers?
First off, there must be a market for the material. Without a market, there is no reason to collect a material for recycling. If a community collection program is accepting a wide variety of materials for recycling but no one wants it, then there is a lot of wasted time and effort in getting it clean and sorted. The reason that corrugated cardboard, newspaper, #1 and #2 plastics, etc., are commonly collected materials, is that there is a recycling infrastructure—processors and manufacturers—who want these materials and make them into products that are sold for profit. Without this infrastructure—or market–recycling cannot be sustained. That is why it is so important that consumers, whether they are buying for their homes or businesses, buy recycled products whenever possible. Only by creating a need for recycled material will markets grow for collected recyclable materials. If there is a system in place for using collected materials, the next thing that is needed is having enough volu
