Is California’s heralded recycling program broken?

At that volume, California’s three-decade-old consumer-recycling program should be considered a smashing success. But the CalRecycle system is in trouble and most agree it needs to be, well, recycled. . . • Hundreds of recycling centers across the state have shuttered since last year, stung by plummeting scrap rates on the global market over the past four years. • Declining oil and natural gas prices — used to remanufacture plastic bottles from recycled mulch — have made regeneration more expensive.