The U.S. EPA surveyed agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 11 U.S. territories in its latest report, the Recycling Needs Survey and Assessment. | New Africa/Shutterstock
A pair of reports from the U.S. EPA shines a light on just how fragmented data collection in the recycling industry is and the investment that would be needed to shore it up.
The Recycling Needs Survey and Assessment and the Assessment of the U.S. Recycling System: Financial Estimates to Modernize Material Recovery Infrastructure are products of a 2021 directive from Congress for the EPA to collect data on residential recycling and estimate the financial investments needed to modernize the U.S. recycling system.
The EPA released an Recycling Infrastructure Assessment report in 2024, as well as its strategy against plastic pollution. The two latest reports dig into the data that states and territories are already collecting on recycling and how much it would cost to improve recycling of municipal packaging materials and composting.
Infrastructure investments
The U.S. would need $36 billion to $43 billion to improve curbside collection, drop-off programs and processing infrastructure by 2030, the agency found. This infrastructure includes MRFs, packaging material specific recycling facilities, and facilities for composting, anaerobic digestion and livestock manure processing.
The investment could bring more than 82 million tons of packaging and organic material into the system per year, a 91% increase in recovery over current levels, the report said – which would boost the nationwide recycling rate from its current 32% to 61%. The EPA previously set a national recycling goal of 50%.
Of the four systems the report analyzed – curbside collection, separate curbside glass collection, drop-off and deposit return systems – the most money would need to go into improving curbside collection, at between $19.9 billion and $21.5 billion. Glass separation would cost about $2.9 billion to improve, while the report suggests spending $100 million on DRS and $1.9 billion to $3.4 billion on drop-off.
The report also explores spending by combined recycling collection categories and organics improvement costs, which range from $14.7 billion to $15.5 billion. The biggest organics investment would be in centralized composting, at $8.7 billion to $9.4 billion.
Data collection
For the needs assessment, Congress directed the EPA to compile data on the number of community curbside and drop-off programs, the total amount of residential packaging materials collected through deposit programs, the amount and types of residential materials collected overall, the number of citizens with access to recycling services on par with access to disposal and inbound contamination and capture rates. It also requested data on single-use plastics and aluminum.
“This report serves as an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the current state of recycling data as well as the recycling needs across the U.S. as we move towards a circular economy,” the EPA stated in its needs survey and assessment.
The Recycling Partnership advocated for the creation of the report and in a statement called it “an important first step for Congress in strengthening the U.S. recycling system, helping to identify and prioritize investments and improvements to capture the full economic value of recycling.” The group also called for Congress to pass legislation that includes a recycling infrastructure investment tax credit.
“This monumental data from EPA lays the framework for needed national investments, and we look forward to working with Congress and other key partners to continue to unlock the economic and environmental benefits of recycling and a circular economy,” said Kate Davenport, TRP chief policy officer.
An online survey was sent to relevant agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 11 U.S. territories. All 50 states, D.C., and the majority of the territories submitted responses, a 95% response rate. Funding was made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Of the 59 states and territories that responded, the report noted that 48% don’t collect data on the number of community curbside recycling programs they have and 37% don’t collect data on the number of drop-off programs. Collection mechanisms ranged from voluntary surveys to direct communication with local governments.
As far as deposit return programs, only 20% of the respondents had a DRS system in place. Of that 20%, 4% did not collect any data on it.
Looking at the volume of materials collected, 54% didn’t collect data on the total amount of residential materials collected through curbside programs annually and 36% didn’t collect data on the types of materials accepted by each recycling program.
The majority of respondents also didn’t collect data on the number of citizens with access to recycling services on par with access to waste disposal (64%), inbound contamination rates (85%), capture rates (85%), the types of single‐use plastics currently in commerce (88%), the rates at which single‐use plastics are recycled (80%) and rates at which aluminum cans are recycled (61%).
Of the 12 states that did collect data on the rates at which single‐use plastics are recycled, six broke down the data by plastic type.
The survey also asked about best guesses for tonnages captured and recycled by program duration and overall access and recycling rate estimates. Only about half of the respondents measure recycling rate at the state or territory level, and of them, the mean rate was 32%.
When asked to provide a best estimate of the overall recycling rate, 44 of the 50 survey takers responded, providing rates that ranged from 1% in the Virgin Islands to 80% in Palau. The average estimate was 29%.
Finally, in terms of access, survey respondents provided a mean estimated level of community access to curbside recycling programs of 44% and a mean estimated level of community access to drop-off recycling of 62%.
The report also noted that the materials most commonly accepted by the majority of state and territory recycling programs are paper products, high density polyethylene, PET and aluminum.
“Overall, the results of the Recycling Needs Survey and Assessment highlight the need to enhance recycling data collection infrastructure nationally,” the needs assessment concluded. “Encouraging standardization of metrics and promoting a regular data collection and reporting schedule for the states, territories and EPA is needed to facilitate tracking of progress with respect to access and recovery rates.”
The EPA suggested using Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling, or SWIFR, grant funds for data collection and continuing to develop an Information Collection Request system to help address the gaps shown by the report.
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