NORWICH – Although the Chenango County landfill sells tons of recycled material to vendors each week, a new customer appeared in April – the Chinese government. They paid for recycled paper to be shipped from North Norwich to Asia.
The county’s Recycling Coordinator Pat Pittsley explained that 22.8 tons of recycled junk mail was sold to a regular vendor acting on China’s behalf. Pittsley said China paid $342 for the material and covered the cost of shipping and freight.
The recycled paper was loaded into a shipping freight container and taken to a harbor in New York City, where it was put on a cargo vessel destined for mainland China.
“It was the first time we’ve done this. We have a good rapport with companies and rarely get stuck with any excess material. However, this material we were looking to get rid of and there was a market for it,” she said.
The recycled paper was taken from the North Norwich Transfer and Recycling Facility in early April.
“This is the first time we ever did a contact by a company that shipped our products China,” said DPW Director Randy Gibbon.
The landfill ships out a load of cardboard, newspaper and junk mail about every other week, each of the three separate shipments contain roughly 20 tons of the material. The shipments are usually purchased by one of the five main vendors that work with the county.
Pittsley explained that the paper was sold at a lower price than usual to China because the landfill lacked enough storage space .
“This vendor was the only one that found a buyer who wanted the material, and we needed to get rid of it,” she said.
Pittsley said she did not know of the ultimate use of the recycled paper or its exact destination in China. She also said that if it was profitable, the county would again sell recycled products through the vendor to China.