Seeking to curb the amount of recyclable materials going to undisclosed locations abroad, Palo Alto has extended a policy that sends mixed paper and mixed rigid plastic to Louisiana and southern California.

The City Council last week extended a pilot program launched in the spring that sharply curtails international shipments of plastic. The move follows two years in which the City Council has tried, with little success, to determine which countries the city's recyclable goods get shipped to. While its contract with its hauler, GreenWaste Palo Alto requires the hauler to report the destinations of local waste, the company's reports offered only vague and incomplete information.

Its most recent report, which was issued in July, argued that the commodities market is unstructured and that the brokers it deals with have only limited information about the ports to which local products get shipped.

"Once at the ports, materials are sent to various plants, making the full life cycle of commodities extremely difficult to track," the report states. "Furthermore, with the current state of the markets, recyclables brokers are not in a position to place requirements on customers."

GreenWaste also maintained in all of its reports that information about markets and pricing constitutes "confidential and proprietary corporate trade secrets."

The lack of information has been a long source of frustration for local environmentalists, who urged the council last spring to seek domestic destinations for local waste. In May, the city amended its contract so that mixed paper would now be sent to a pulp and paper mill in Louisiana, where the material would be combined with other wood products and turned into paper products. Mixed rigid plastic, meanwhile, will be processed into bits of plastic called "nurdles," which will be sent to various plants in southern California to create items like bags and rope, according to an announcement the city released last week.

The result is a significant reduction in waste that gets shipped abroad. Before the change was made, about 42% of the city's 16,000 tons of recyclable material stayed in the United States, with the remaining 58% going abroad to China, Korea, India, Pakistan and countries in Southeast Asia. Among others. With the change in place, 62% of the materials stays in the United State and about 38% goes abroad, most of it cardboard. The city's announcement touts the fact that the recent local actions "nearly eliminate international shipments of plastics."

A Dec. 12 report from Public Works stated that city staff believes the new policy will "place the City in a leadership role nationally in preventing unintended consequences of shipping plastic and mixed paper recyclables internationally."

The city report also notes that cardboard represents less of a problem than the other materials because it is "less likely to be mismanaged since it is a commonly high-quality product with little contamination and a high recyclability."

Cardboard is also not included in the ongoing program because it is less likely to be mismanaged since it is a commonly high-quality product with little contamination and a high recyclability.

According to a report issued earlier this month, about 8% of the city's plastics will continue to go abroad while 92% will go to domestic destinations. In addition, about 90% of cardboard will go abroad. Everything else, including glass, aluminum, e-waste, mixed paper and mixed rigid plastic, will now be processed domestically.

The City Council voted 6-1, with Greg Tanaka dissenting, to approve the extension of the domestic program on Dec. 12.