Down in the Dumps

Living on Earth

The modern recycling movement started thirty years ago in an effort to reduce the amount of garbage going into landfills. It worked. In the process it also became a multi-billion dollar business, with thousands of new products being made out of recycled material. But the global recession has hit the recycling industry hard. Christine Parrish visits a recycling plant in Massachusetts to find trash that used to be turned into cash has sunk to junk value.

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