On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 21:27:03 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 22:37:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

But, said my friend, money made by recycling was not taxed.
(Californians may want to chime in on whether that was true - for me,
it's just hearsay.) So the guy spent all his time bicycling around,
collecting roadside aluminum cans to supplement his income.

I don't know, and could not find anything definitive with Google.
However, the continuing decline in the number of recycling centers in
California seems to indicate that recycling is NOT a thriving
business.
"What the Heck Is Up With California’s Recycling Program?"
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/california-recycling-program-fail/
All told, nearly one-third of California’s recycling
centers have gone out of business.
Note that this article is from Aug 2016, well before Trump started his
trade war with China.

A recent news article stated that Chinese companies are considering
building re-cycling plants in the U.S.
https://resource-recycling.com/plast...cycling-plans/

Ecomelida is a subsidiary of Zhangzhou Sanlida Environmental
Technology Corporation, a Chinese operation that imports and processes
scrap fiber and plastic.

South Carolina is our first base in the U.S., company representative
Yang Huang said. We are expecting to build more facilities in the
States in the future.

The company has historically imported scrap materials into China for
processing. Ecomelida recently set its sights on the U.S. for a few
reasons. The recycling system is considered more mature in the U.S.,
Huang said. We should be able to get cheaper and better raw materials
here.

Ecomelida has acquired a roughly 200,000-square foot building on about
45 acres of land. The facility will open with an initial production
capacity of 72,000 metric tons of plastic pellets per year and 36,000
metric tons of pulp. The company plans to scale production up in the
future, Huang said.
--
cheers,

John B.