RRS conducted a survey for the Glass Recycling Coalition that asked materials recovery facility operators, municipal recycling program leaders, and glass industry representatives about various aspects of recycling glass. The results indicated contamination concerns as well as perceived challenges around transportation, end markets and overall cost-effectiveness. Data Corner is compiled monthly by recycling consultancy RRS. This article originally appeared in...

RRS recently analyzed PET trends using pricing data and recovery rates from recyclingmarkets.net, NAPCOR and other sources. The counterintuitive picture that emerges is that recycled PET (RPET) doesn’t follow normal supply and demand trends – higher bale prices do not drive more supply. There are two reasons for this market reality. First, the price of recovered PET (both PET bales...

RRS recently worked with the Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works to research the feasibility of adding curbside compost collection to the municipality’s existing recycling program and identified several economic and environmental benefits. High participation could be expected if carts were deployed universally, education materials were provided with the cart, and residents were given financial incentivizes to divert waste via...

RRS compiled a timeline of events surrounding China’s recent policy announcement that banned import of 24 types of recovered materials. The proposal has triggered changes in commodity pricing and adjustments to several U.S. recycling programs. This is an example of global interconnectivity in materials recovery – a foreign nation’s policy has had repercussions on virtually all facets of the U.S....

RRS utilized the data from a recent academic study, “Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made,” to construct a visualization of the life cycle of various plastics. The paper, which appeared in the July edition of the journal Science Advances, determined how much virgin plastic was produced between the dawn of the plastics industry around 1950 and 2015....

The word cloud below represents the language utilized in 1,000 residential recycling program guidelines, as reviewed by RRS. The size of each word is proportional to its frequency of use in program education/outreach materials. RRS also categorized the top 100 words and found that 55 percent of those terms described an item (for example, box, bottle or container); 24 percent...

RRS compiled a sampling of nationwide data from Governmental Advisory Associates and U.S. EPA sources to show current average materials recovery facility (MRF) efficiency rates and community recycling rates based on MRF construction year. Efficiency rates show the percentage of materials, by weight, that enter the MRF and are not discarded as residue. Newer MRFs open the door for single-stream...

RRS analyzed commodity pricing from several published reports to compare U.S. and European pricing data for recycled fiber and glass. Although making a precise comparison is challenging due to differences in traded grades and local composition, the findings nonetheless highlight divergences in pricing between the two jurisdictions. The differences can likely be attributed to the large source-separated collection footprint in...

As educational leaders take their much-deserved summer breather, they might finally have some time to consider how to bolster materials recovery in schools. The cafeteria could be a great place to start. Resources are available to help schools set up or enhance their recycling/composting programs to recover food waste and recyclables, including some often-overlooked materials like cartons and foam trays....

The U.S. experienced a rapid surge in its recycling rate as capacity increased with the growth of curbside recycling programs and construction of materials recovery facilities in the late 1980s to mid-1990s. However, the last several years have seen the increases in recycling rate level off and stagnate in a development that parallels recent commodity pricing. While rising commodity prices...