Will China drive FAKE RECYCLING off the rails? & Should waste haulers set public policy?

Two important stories broke in the Vancouver Sun today.

First, we learned that China is blocking the flow of poor quality plastics from Vancouver and other communities that can't be bothered to manage them appropriately. This could spell the end of Single Stream Recycling -- maybe the end of collecting anything but paper at curbside. This is the beginning of the new China that will not need us any more - they'll have plenty of plastic of their own to recycle.

In the same edition of the Vancouver Sun, a group calling itself the Waste Management Association of BC (WMABC) ran a full page ad urging citizens to complain to their elected officials for meddling in the way waste is handled in the Metro Vancouver region. The ad warned readers that these matters are way to technical and complex for mere politicians to understand and they should mind their own business.

Now, these guys are the self-same companies that can't keep our plastics clean enough to sell to China. True, the politicians were gullible enough to hire them, but I'll defend to the death the right of my political representatives to make the rules for the garbage industry.