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Case of the Missing Milk Crates
(Photo via Toddcamm.com)
Stolen Milk Crates Feed Black Market
By Raquel Maria Dillon
The Associated Press, via Forbes
July 22, 2007
A new breed of crate rustler is cashing in by swiping thousands of the containers from loading docks and selling them to shady recyclers.
The containers are chopped into bits and shipped to booming factories in China to be made into a variety of products, from pipes to flower pots. . . .
In the past two years, the high-density polyethylene has joined a growing list of materials that are being stolen and sold via a thriving underground recycling network.
An underground recycling network? And it costs the industry an estimated $80 million annually? How subversive!
Listen to this Marketplace report:
Ryssdal: My reaction this morning when I saw this story on the AP wire was that it was about, you know, just a bunch of college kids stealing milk crates for their dorm rooms. Apparently it is a good deal more than that.
Woods: Well, it is a much bigger deal than that.
Ryssdal: What is happening to these crates and then what, eventually, are people doing with them?
Woods: They are taking the milk crates and then sending them to a recycler who regrinds them and then the regrind is sent overseas to use for other plastics — sent to Korea and to China.
[tags]China, milk crates, globalization, recycling[/tags]
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Erica
Just wondering where I could get some of those green crates that you show in the picture. I’d like to start my own produce delivery business and would like to use green crates instead of bags as part of a broader environmentally-conscious marketing message.
Thanks ….
John