Shanghai Scrap

The Atlantic Online has just posted “Scrapped,” a brief dispatch I wrote from an interesting, emergency pow-wow between China’s biggest scrap importers, and the world’s largest scrap exporters, back in November. It also includes a slide show – “Where America Recycles” of images that I’ve taken in various Chinese recycling facilities over the last six years.

The crash – and it’s a crash, believe me – in the world scrap recyclables market began in September, but – up until a couple of weeks ago – the story was mostly confined to financial wires and trade publications. That’s beginning to change. Today, for example, China Law Blog has a very interesting post on the subject. And my friends at the ground-breaking MinnPost in Minneapolis have an excellent piece on how the situation is hurting small, independent US scrappers. Both worth reading.