Kickstart: A thorny supply chain problem? A shortage of your garden gnomes

If you want evidence that supply chain problems have left companies and consumers with a tougher row to hoe, look no further than this: a shortage of garden gnomes, plastic and otherwise.

That's right. The BBC reports that garden centers in the U.K. are woefully out of stock of the diminutive decorations and linked it to general shortages of garden furniture and other home products.

They blamed it on an increase in demand, coupled with shipping and manufacturing problems in the pandemic and exacerbated by short-term hiccups from the recent Suez Canal ship blockage.

Of course most of the attention about the world's supply chain problems have gone to bigger concerns, like a shortage of microchips stalling auto production or the European plastic processors trade group sounding warnings about resin shortages unlike what they've seen before.

Still, the garden gnome shortage is clearly a thorny situation for some.

One center reported it hadn't had a garden dwarf of plastic, stone or other material in stock in six months. The industry's trade association pointed to the popularity of gardening in lockdowns creating real difficulties for supply chains.

Here's a COVID-19 adjustment that's gone better.

Injection molding machine maker Arburg GmbH & Co. KG reports it'll be fully stocked with apprentices taking on full-time jobs.

The Lossburg, Germany-based firm said it's hired all 59 apprentices in its training programs, and it marked the occasion with four socially distanced welcome ceremonies earlier this month.

The company said all the apprentices and students from Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University were able to complete their training in a pandemic.

Renate Keinath, the managing partner of Arburg responsible for personnel management, suggested the online learning adjustments required under COVID-19 could actually give the new employees some additional competence in digitalization, as the industry moves in that direction.

Arburg said it's pressing ahead with more apprentices for its 3,200-employee workforce.

It has 73 contracts signed for the new training year beginning in September and plans its Arburg Info Days July 2-3 for future students to learn about its 15 skilled occupations and relevant university programs.

With Earth Day approaching on April 22, the economics around recycling are getting more attention.

Here's a detailed story from the Post and Courier newspaper looking at how some South Carolina communities are taking very different approaches with their curbside recycling. Plastics figures prominently.

The city council in Simpsonville voted April 13 to eliminate curbside recycling, noting that it used to get paid for the recyclables it collected but market conditions have turned that upside down. Starting in 2019, it had to pay $25 a ton, and now that's gone up to $65 a ton.

Similarly, the head of a sanitation district serving 54,000 homes outside Greenville said its recycling programs are not economically viable and warns about the "fairytale of recycling." Only about 20 percent of its customers participate in recycling programs.

On the other side, the city of Greenville, where 75 percent of residents participate, is sticking with recycling, even as it's losing about $630,000 a year on it. That's about 16 percent of its solid waste budget.

The article notes complexities, like how China's 2018 National Sword ban that upended markets in the U.S., particularly for the lower-value plastics 3-7.

But it also noted how some plastics, like PET and HDPE bottles, along with aluminum and untainted cardboard, are still profitable to recycle for Greenville.

A lot of Earth Day attention will likely focus on ocean pollution or images of wildlife that's eaten plastics, but the economic problems cities and taxpayers face is at least as important a driver of the recycling debates.