Cascadia Consulting Group compiled single-family recycling composition data utilizing studies conducted in the past three years in five western and southern U.S. cities. The five municipalities all operate single-stream recycling collection and have populations ranging from 600,000 to 2.2 million. The chart below provides a breakout of types and amounts of contaminants, defined as materials not accepted in the programs....

How has the materials recovery industry progressed in its ongoing efforts to increase diversion? To offer a portrait, Cascadia Consulting utilized data from the U.S. Census, the Washington state Office of Financial Management, and publicly available information from the state of California, the City of Seattle and King County, Wash. The charts below indicate a drop in per person landfilled quantities of...