Big things could be around the corner as China has instituted their National Sword Policy - reducing the level of accepted contamination in recycling coming from overseas. In our home base of Minnesota, that is less of an issue as we have a fair amount of local and regional markets who take our recyclables and make them into new products.
California is a different story. Resource Recycling recently had an article that stated "About 85 percent of mixed paper and OCC (old corrugated cardboard) exported out of California has been bound for China in recent years" and that "62 percent of the (15 million tons) of exported material went to China in 2016". What that means is that millions of tons of recyclable materials could be heading to the landfill. Read the full article here.
Do your part. Know what recyclables are accepted by your hauler. Implement standardized signage from Recycle Across America at your schools, churches, offices, sports fields, etc. so that we can give everyone the chance to #RecycleRight. And let your elected officials know that environmental causes and green jobs are important to you and to our communities!