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Amid the pear orchards and wineries of southern Oregon, more than 90 per cent of residents dutifully dump discarded junk mail, unwanted phone books and old magazines into specially marked gray and red recycling bins. And every other week, the canisters get wheeled to the curb for pickup, as most of the contents begin their long trip to China.

But the economics of this four-decade-old ritual are being upended, as is much of the recycling industry in the U.S. — the world’s largest producer of waste. China, which buys more junk than anyone, is cutting way back. The country is trying to curb rampant pollution with new restrictions on waste imports and shutting old industrial plants, including mills that process foreign scrap into reusable raw materials.

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As a result, Rogue Disposal & Recycling’s facility in Medford, Oregon, is so full that it has 600 tons of recyclables, including mixed paper, cardboard and plastics, in the employee parking lot. Since October, the community was forced to bury 800 tons in the local landfill, or roughly the amount of paper from 13,000 trees. That’s been a shock for a state that is a leader in American environmental politics — it was one of the first to impose a 5-cent-per-bottle deposit to encourage glass recycling in 1971.