A new study finds that people in the US produce similar amounts of plastic packaging waste regardless of their income, education level or location. At the same time, people in wealthier and more educated communities recycle more plastics, the study from University at Buffalo found.
The study, published today in Nature Communications Sustainability, suggests that uneven access to recycling infrastructure plays a central role. Specifically, researchers found that areas with higher incomes and education levels tend to be closer to large-scale industrial recycling facilities, making recycling more convenient and accessible. On the other hand, communities with lower incomes and less formal education often have fewer – if any – nearby recycling facilities, which makes recycling more difficult and costlier.
A key finding from the study was that “importantly, most people in regions with high rates of plastic recycling live within 30 miles of industrial recycling facilities,” said study co-author John D. Atkinson, the Scott and Coleen Stevens chair in engineering sustainability and an associate professor in the UB Department of civil, structural and environmental engineering.
Atkinson admitted that some of the study’s results “aren’t a surprise. It’s harder for lower income people to recycle,” he noted, adding “But what makes this work unique is we quantify it,” so people can look at specific areas and think about improvements, and maybe even find business opportunities.
“Our analysis suggests that recycling success is less shaped by plastic waste generation and more related to whether communities are given fair and equitable access to recycling systems,” Atkinson added. “Recycling conversations have long been about what can we do to make people want to recycle? I think that conversation needs to expand, to not just who wants to recycle but who gets to recycle.”
For several years the US has been lagging behind Europe in plastic recycling. While Europe recycled 42.1% of its plastic packaging in 2023, according to Eurostat, the US recycled just 14%. According to The Recycling Partnership’s 2024 State of Recycling report, only 21% of all residential recyclable materials—including plastics—are captured and recycled in the US. The US produces the most plastic waste overall and per capita, averaging 287 pounds per person per year.
And recycling rates remain uneven across US states and neighborhoods. By crunching data from maps, the census and other sources the Buffalo researchers were able to see a distinct pattern. It was known that the South lags behind the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and California in recycling rates.
The team noted that states with lower recycling rates, such as Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas, have fewer recycling facilities and are generally less wealthy and less college-educated compared to regions with higher recycling rates.
The researchers noted that the most sparsely populated states, such as Montana and Wyoming, have very limited recycling infrastructure. Yet California, which is one of the largest states, has higher recycling rates thanks to a denser network of recycling facilities. At the same time, states with bottle bills have plastic packaging recycling rates that are twice the national average.
Atkinson said the next step is to start drilling down on specific recycling facilities, to assess their individual capacities, to count the number of hauling trucks, to map routes and other details that will give an even clearer picture of recycling access. He said he would also like to share his team’s results with industry associations and companies in the sector.
Additional co-authors on the study include Monica Miles, assistant professor of engineering education; Aditya Vedantam, associate professor of operations management and strategy; and Janet Z. Yang, professor of communication. The paper’s lead author is Elham Mousania, who earned her PhD in civil, structural and environmental engineering at UB and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London.
