You know those big blue bins you roll our to your curb each week in SLO? Ever give pause to consider where all that plastic and paper you put in them goes? Try … China.

One of your classmates in the MBA program works for a local firm that helps process these materials at Cold Canyon Landfill just outside town. As I understand it, your plastic and paper/cardboard is culled out then shipped (by truck or train) down to Los Angeles, where the middleman sells it to a Chinese firm who then loads in onto a cargo ship bound for China. What happens to it next? Check out this wonderful NY Times article about one of the richest ladies in China and her recycling business and firm, Blazing a Paper Trail.

What I love about this article is that it highlights yet another example of how their are some really, really, smart people out there who are very entrepreneurial making a lot of money doing things like this that some snobs in business would consider to be too lowbrow for them. Also, what a great article highlighting good sustainability practices. … paper/plastic used in the US, put on a ship to China, recycled, then used for packaging for products that come right back to California, and then the cycle starts all over again.

Check out my earlier related post relating to plastics/MBA Polymers and this NY Times article Venture Capital Nation: A Light Bulb Goes On, and China Starts Thinking ‘Alternative Energy’.

What opportunities can YOU spot to jump in on to make a living and make the world a better place as capital, labor and investment moves around the world, as these businesspeople have done?