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Short answer: some of them end up in landfills, but a large part of them enters the Global Commodity Network, which sends materials from our old cans, cardboard boxes, and milk cans to the state and around the world.

What can be recycled and what cannot be recycled is more determined by the economy than the environment. Recent international trends have overturned the way this process works.

Longer answer: In North Carolina, local governments are responsible for garbage and recycling services. Last year, more than half of the counties, cities, towns and villages in the state provided roadside recycling services. This is a slight decrease from the previous year because several cities-including cities like Gastonia-have stopped roadside pickups.   

After being collected and thrown into the back of a recycling truck, the objects were taken to one of the 17 material recycling facilities in the state. These recycling facilities are called MRF (pronounced "Murph") and are usually operated by private companies that have contracts with local governments.

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MRF is not focused on everything that can be recycled scientifically, but on materials that make money.

Many everyday materials make a lot of money in the commodity market when they are sorted, cleaned, broken down and combined in large quantities. The current price of aluminum is close to US$3,000 per metric ton. The price of steel is US$5,800, and the price of tin is more than US$35,000. There is also a demand for mixed paper, rubber, glass, certain plastics, etc. 

Modern MRF separates materials through a highly mechanized process involving magnets, robots, eddy currents, and other technologies. The cardboard box was flattened. Jars, jars and bottles are all cleaned.

Then, each item is packed into big bags and shipped to a separate processing plant, where the recyclables are broken down. The glass is shattered into tiny pieces called broken glass, the plastic is melted and modeled, and the mixed paper is poured into something similar to an industrial mixer to make new pulp. 

Materials that have no market enter the landfill. Wendy Worley, head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) Recycling and Materials Management Department, said it can be difficult to let people know what they should and shouldn’t put in recycling bins.

"As people become more exposed to curbside recycling, we do notice that education is not keeping up," Wally said. "A lot of things that are really unsellable will be thrown into the trash."

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A 2020 NCDEQ report found that 17% of the items North Carolina tried to recycle were “contaminated,” meaning they would go to landfill. Worley pointed out that a common culprit of this type of contamination is a single plastic bag, which is often entangled in MRF machines and may cause operations to stop.

As the global commodity market drives the recycling process, decisions made on the other side of the planet will affect the fate of the items in the blue trash can in North Carolina. Starting around 2017, China and a few other countries stopped accepting most of the U.S. recyclable materials, severely disrupting the bulk commodity market.

"After this global phenomenon occurred, prices did fall," Wally said.

One victim of China's decision is plastics numbered 3 to 7 on the ubiquitous triangular recycling label. Today, most of these types of plastics go to landfills.

But Wally said that this international trend has one benefit: the growth of a more efficient and environmentally friendly domestic recycling market benefits North Carolina companies and workers.

According to data from the Ministry of Economic and Social Development, the local government recycled more than 1.5 million tons of materials in the last fiscal year. One-third of these recyclable materials remain in the state, and nearly 80% remain in the Southeast.

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In western North Carolina, Jackson Paper uses recycled paper. OI Glass in Piedmont, Lexington uses recycled glass, while a garden products factory in Catawba County uses recycled plastic.

Worley stated that the recycling industry supports nearly 16,000 private sector jobs.  

This year, the North Carolina House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Carolina Environmental Waste Management Act, which aims to guide public funds to help cities and counties provide plastic recycling services.

"If you look at some of the smaller counties, they are working to fund some of these projects," said Krista Early, an advocate for the non-profit environment in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Although happy with the prospect of more recycling, Earle wants people in North Carolina to remember that reducing the amount of things they buy and reusing what they already own is a more environmentally friendly strategy than recycling.

Brian Gordon is a statewide correspondent for USA Today Network in North Carolina. Contact him via bgordon@gannett.com or Twitter @briansamuel92.