Your monthly guide to understanding the recycling system — no jargon, no guilt, just clear answers to the questions everyone has but rarely asks. From how materials markets work to what “wishful recycling” actually costs, Sorted makes the industry make sense.
At a recent social event, my wife told a group of friends that I am an editor for Resource Recycling. In response, a middle-aged male acquaintance blurted out, “Recycling is a scam!”
Many of us in this industry have had similar experiences, or are all too familiar with negative media coverage and consumer questions around recycling.
“When people say recycling is a scam, it’s important to acknowledge their frustration and to be transparent about the challenges facing the recycling system,” Cody Marshall, The Recycling Partnership’s (TRP) chief recycling officer, told Resource Recycling. “Public attitudes toward recycling are directly tied to whether they trust the system.”
Central to that trust is whether people believe the materials they recycle are actually turned into new products. “If residents feel their efforts are wasted, they are less likely to participate.”
The good news for the industry is that research shows people still believe in recycling. Eight in 10 Americans believe recycling has a positive impact, with 7 in 10 believing it is worth the effort, according to TRP.
“The solution isn’t to defend a flawed system, but to be entirely transparent about its shortcomings while working together to fix them,” said Marshall, who pointed to the work TRP does to engage and shore up the entire recycling value chain, from access to infrastructure to end markets.
For a recycling system to be effective, there are five requirements that must be met, said Marshall: Packaging recyclability, recycling access, recycling engagement, processing, and end markets. When those five pillars function well the result is a cohesive system.
How it actually works
Recycling insiders have expressed frustration to Resource Recycling that consumers often know little about how their industry actually works, and that they often take away the wrong messages from negative media reports (such as the recent controversy over a Beyond Plastics report on Starbucks cup recycling).
It’s true that certain materials have relatively low recycling rates in the U.S., especially when compared to Europe. But Marshall says, “When headlines focus only on low recycling rates, they can reinforce that skepticism while overlooking the progress being made to strengthen the system.”
Too often, stories frame the problems around collection shortcomings, when in reality much of the problem is a lack of clear demand for recycled products. That’s something that can be improved by recycled content mandates and long-term contracts from buyers, as well as consumer behavior.
Insiders also point to China’s Green Fence and National Sword policies as resulting in eroded trust in recycling in the U.S. China’s policies restricted imports of recovered materials, including plastics and paper from the U.S., starting in 2013. One study found that 23.2% more plastic was sent to U.S. landfills in 2018 than the year before, the year China’s National Sword import bans began to take effect. The result was a lot of negative headlines about the export of trash and the state of US recycling.
But within a few years, the North American recycling industry began to adjust, strengthening domestic infrastructure, improving transparency and better communicating to the public. “The good news is that prices and demand for recyclables from municipal curbside recycling programs have rebounded and are at — or close to —record highs in the United States and Canada,” the Solid Waste Association of North America wrote in a report in November 2021.
Another knock the public often has against recycling is that there is no unified, consistent standard across the U.S., which can lead to confusion and even arguments. In fact, there are 9,000 separate local programs, many with different rules about what can go in the bins. One solution to this problem is better education and engagement with the public. Another is program harmonization and a third is truth in labeling. These issues can be improved by extended producer responsibility programs, which shift the burden of paying for recycling from municipalities and consumers to producers of products, leading to investments in recycling infrastructure and wider access.
A great example of successful public education and engagement was the Recycle in Action events held by the Association of Plastic Recyclers across the country in May, inviting the public into a broad range of recycling facilities, to see for themselves how the sector works.
After one such tour, of KW Plastics in Troy, Alabama, local resident Susan Pierce said, “I had no idea the scope and breadth of this place.” She added, “it’s nice to see what happens to what we put on the curb.”
To better understand attitudes about recycling, TRP created the Recycling Confidence Index, which launched in 2022 with updates expected this summer. The index found that confidence grows when residents have convenient access to recycling, clear information about what belongs in the bin, and assurance that materials are actually turned into new products.
Benefits of recycling
This next section may be old hat to some readers of Resource Recycling, but to those of you who are newer to the space, we thought it was worth repeating.
According to the EPA, recycling has many benefits. This includes conservation of resources, reduction of greenhouse gases, energy savings, reduction of harmful pollution and cleaner communities. According to the most recent EPA data, recycling and composting saved more than 193 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018, equal to taking roughly 42 million cars off the road for a year.
Recycling is also a business that contributes meaningfully to the U.S. economy. The sector accounts for 681,000 jobs a year, $37.8 billion in wages and $5.5 billion in tax revenues, according to the Recycling Economic Information Report. This works out to 1.17 jobs per 1,000 tons of materials recycled and $65.23 in wages and $9.42 in tax revenue for every ton of materials recycled.
As many in the recycling industry will readily tell you, recycling isn’t the only solution to the world’s litter or waste problems. But it is certainly a valuable tool in the box.
APR owns Resource Recycling, Inc., publisher of Resource Recycling.
