This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
Did you know that the U.S. produces 268 million tons of trash each year, most of which finds its way to landfills? But landfills are not just storage sites for waste, they are also the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the country, according to the U.S. EPA.
Waste naturally produces methane as it decomposes, and when released into the atmosphere, it contributes to global warming. Yet methane is also the primary component of natural gas. Today waste is being given a second life in the form of harnessing landfill gas for renewable energy production.
For an industry rooted in sustainability, adopting renewable natural gas aligns perfectly with the recycling industry’s mission. RNG is a cheaper, clean, proven U.S.-made energy source that also happens to be renewable. The recycling industry can lead by example through converting its fleets to run on RNG.
How RNG is Made
RNG is the result of a process that captures methane emissions at landfills and converts them into a renewable fuel. This waste-to-fuel process begins by capturing methane at landfills, purifying it and converting it to a clean-burning fuel. Once purified, RNG is interchangeable with traditional natural gas, making it easy to integrate into the existing natural gas pipeline infrastructure for use as compressed natural gas fuel for vehicles.
The RNG industry has seen significant growth in recent years, experiencing a 13% year-over-year increase in 2023. With the recycling truck market estimated to grow over 6% between 2024 and 2032, there is an even greater need for alternative fuel solutions like RNG.
The Benefits of Making the Switch
Converting your fleet to CNG can lead to significant cost savings, particularly as volatile diesel prices continue to fluctuate. The cost of natural gas remains relatively stable and a substantially cheaper option compared to diesel. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, between April 1 and April 15, 2023, the national average price of diesel fuel in the U.S. was $4.25 per gallon while the national average price of CNG in that same timeframe was $2.99 per diesel-gallon-equivalent.
Today all major original equipment manufacturers are manufacturing natural gas trucks on the assembly lines, which ensures that fleets can transition to RNG-sourced CNG vehicles without compromising performance. These trucks offer the same torque, horsepower and range as their diesel counterparts. In fact, Cummins’ X15N natural gas engine is already being tested by major fleets and has been praised for its durability and diesel-like performance.
By making the switch, heavy transportation, such as recycling trucks, and power generation greenhouse gas emissions can
also be reduced by 95%, according to Argonne National Laboratory. RNG also plays a key role in a circular economy model, turning waste into a usable product. For the recycling industry, this means using fuel produced from the city’s waste to power its fleets, creating a closed-loop system that benefits both the environment and the economy.
A Look Ahead
Powering your fleet with RNG or CNG derived from the city’s waste is a win-win scenario. The recycling industry benefits greatly from this transition, as it aligns perfectly with its principles of waste reduction and resource efficiency.
Now is the time to act. By choosing RNG, the recycling industry can make meaningful strides toward a cleaner planet while maintaining the operational efficiency necessary to meet our waste management needs.
Jorge Herrera is CEO of Nopetro Energy. Since its founding, he has led the company’s rapid growth into a vertically integrated clean energy leader focused on global decarbonization through production and distribution of compressed natural gas, renewable natural gas and liquefied natural gas.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Resource Recycling, Inc. If you have a subject you wish to cover in an op-ed, please send a short proposal to [email protected] for consideration.
Businesses and other organizations across the country provide examples of collecting unusual and uncommonly recycled materials. | Courtesy of Binghampton Development Corporation
This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content. Finding a niche and keeping materials separated and clean are crucial to building recycling programs that go beyond the everyday commodities, leaders of programs that collect items as diverse as Solo cups, streetlights, swimming pool lane dividers and plastic drums for soft drink flavorings said.
“We’re able to get top dollar because we’re sorting it all very specifically,” said Andy Kizzee, director of the nonprofit Binghampton Development Corporation in Memphis, Tennessee, which for the past three years has been one of perhaps only two groups in the U.S. that dismantle old streetlights to recover individual components made of copper, aluminum, glass and other materials.
The organization has processed more than 78,000 lights from projects replacing sodium fixtures with LEDs in Memphis, Nashville and other cities, Kizzee said. Each light contains around $7 or $8 worth of parts that in the standard scrap metal trade would typically be shredded and divvied up among a long chain of scrappers, haulers and exporters, he added: “We’re able to unlock all of that value in one spot by manually disassembling it.”
And while any recycling operation needs to collect enough volume to make shipments economical, even an organization of modest size can get in on the uncommon and unusual side of recycling.
“This MRF being as tiny as it is has advantages,” said Nick Kluge, assistant director of waste recovery services for the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, where staff and volunteers accommodate impromptu collections from every sort of research and student activity. He recalled the agricultural side of campus asking him about the possibility of recycling the plastic tags used in plant nurseries, for example.
“So we set up another gaylord” and started collecting, Kluge said. “Sure enough, once a year we send out six, eight hundred pounds of these things” to a buyer.
Finding a niche
Laurel Harrop was 23 when she became a recycling entrepreneur in 2011, launching Laurel Environmental Group to recycle lighting fixtures, working her way up from interior lighting to streetlights. An old family friend and blacksmith from Wisconsin provided the key, fabricating hydraulic presses for her that could pop out a streetlight’s insides.
“We came up with a process and a system,” she said in an interview, and before long her company was the go-to streetlight recycler for major cities throughout the U.S. A San Diego project processing 35,000 fixtures was her breakout. Hundreds of thousands more have followed; the company is now in the process of doing 130,000 lights for Philadelphia.
“This business is one of those that people just don’t know is even going on,” Harrop said, adding she’s not aware of any others in the field besides BDC, the Memphis nonprofit. “I always enjoyed that we were doing something good here.”
The BDC following her example happened almost by accident, Kizzee said. The organization focuses on building workplace skills and experience for people who need the help, such as those with histories of substance abuse or with the criminal justice system. A few years ago the nonprofit partnered with an energy services company that was involved with streetlight conversions in the region and was interested in using BDC’s warehouse space.
BDC had already begun working on recycling tires, polystyrene and mattresses, as reported in this magazine and in the November 2024 issue, “Expanding the tire recycling front.” So Kizzee spent a few weeks prying apart a few dozen fixtures and developing a concept for a new recycling stream.
That led to processing fixtures for Memphis’ conversion project in 2023 and now Nashville’s own ongoing project, which is nearly zero-waste after BDC connected with a nearby glass recycling company, Kizzee said.
“A trailer of about 1,300 fixtures gets filled up over two weeks, and then it drives here,” he said.
Harrop said the work’s been so successful that the jobs are starting to slow down in California and elsewhere. She compared it to the phasing out of CRT televisions — there are only so many out there.
“I used to think I’d find another niche in recycling like that,” Harrop said, though she’s been increasingly focused on another company she started that sells canned beverages. “But you never know. I want to keep doing this until it’s done.”
Courtesy of University of Minnesota Waste Recovery Services
Keeping it pure
Wil Ross, executive vice president of sales and procurement at Alternative Plastics in northwest Arkansas, has made a career of finding, processing and selling an esoteric assortment of olefin plastics.
Toilet seats and other fixtures, barrels that held food and drink flavors, totes and pallets from the area’s poultry industry, bread crates from bakeries, car bumpers and dashboards, retail and yard signs, plastic shotgun shell casings — all of these things and more have come through his facility for pelletization and resale to manufacturers.
“I do a lot of cold calling,” said Ross, who makes a point of visiting the industrial parks within a few hundred miles to make connections and learn about manufacturers, the recycled resin they might need and what they do with their waste, such as excess trimmings or defective products. Alternative Plastics takes care to keep shipments and plastic types separate at all times for purity and quality control, Ross added, because buyers are picky.
“Plastics is so diverse. Paper’s paper, you can’t really change paper. But plastics is just ridiculous,” he said. “We know what everything is prior to it coming in, so when we run it, we run that thing and that thing only. It makes it a hell of a lot easier.”
Kluge applies the same meticulous separation to the University of Minnesota’s waste recovery department, allowing it to resell soundproofing panels from music rooms for reuse, for instance, and to recycle plastic pipettes from chemistry labs, which go to nearby manufacturer Avon Plastics for landscaping items. Solo cups, swim lane dividers, interior lighting fixtures, plastic carriers for aluminum cans, and CDs and their cases are collected, too.
Souvenir cups from the athletics department might have presented a challenge because of their label wrapping, but “if you keep them segregated as their own type, just souvenir cups, then they can be recycled again,” Kluge said.
He partly credited the university’s in-house control of its material streams for the programs’ success. The university has its own fleet of trucks, small MRF and a reuse warehouse.
“Those three together make us extremely unique,” Kluge said. “You gain control of the materials from the loading dock to as far as you want to take it.”
And while the campus has achieved a diversion rate of around 55%, he said, it’s also in the process of developing a zero-waste plan with RRS this year: “We’re very proud, but we know we could do better.”
Local programs key in on community impact as state policies expand. | Courtesy of the city of Long Beach.
This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
Combining mattress recycling with social and workforce services has emerged as a consistent approach around the country as more of the U.S. gradually begins recycling its mattresses and bedsprings for scrap metal, wood and other materials, several program leaders said in recent interviews.
“We create job opportunities for those in need of second chances — recovering drug addicts and homeless veterans — ensuring people don’t fall through the cracks of the economy,” said Ryan Tiano, chief operations officer of Isaiah 58 Inc., a Nashville nonprofit operating Spring Back Mattress Recycling out of locations in Nashville, Colorado and Utah. The organization hires people who have completed or are enrolled in a drug and alcohol recovery program, sober living facility or transitional home.
Combined, the three Spring Back programs recycle approximately 150,000 mattresses per year, or more than 9 million cubic feet of landfill space.
“These groups face enormous barriers to successfully re-entering society, making it nearly impossible to find work and achieve financial independence,” Tiano said. “Our team assists these people in combating social injustice and creating transitional employment opportunities.”
The successes of Spring Back and other organizations like it come as mattress recycling policies slowly expand. Oregon in January joined California, Connecticut and Rhode Island in implementing a statewide mattress program. These states impose a flat fee ranging from $16 to $22.50 on every mattress or box spring purchased, whether online or in stores. The fees fund recycling programs managed by the bedding industry-backed Mattress Recycling Council.
Among the three original states, more than 15 million mattresses have been recycled, resulting in 500 million pounds of recycled material. This year the International Sleep Products Association, the council’s founder, is also lobbying for similar legislation in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia.
“Our expansion into Oregon reflects the bedding industry’s commitment to recycling,” Mike O’Donnell, MRC’s chief operating officer, said in a written statement. “We’re grateful for the support of Oregon’s solid waste community, mattress retailers and manufacturers as we embark on this exciting new chapter.”
Breaking down the basics
Up to 75% of a mattress can be recycled, with steel springs, foam padding, wood frames and fabrics finding new life in various industries, said Tom Smith, marketing manager for the MRC.
“Steel, in particular, finds a robust market,” he said. “In traditional box springs, slinky-like steel springs are cut out, compacted by recyclers, and sometimes shredded before being baled and sold in the scrap market.”
The evolution of mattress design has introduced pocket coils — individual high-carbon steel springs wrapped in polypropylene fabric sleeves. While they present challenges in separation, demand for scrap ferrous steel remains high. Older Bonnell coils, known for their hourglass shape and high carbon content, also boast a strong resale market when properly processed.
“The foam padding is popular with those in the carpet industry,” Smith said. “Most of this material is polyurethane, which is collected and compressed into giant bales. It is then repurposed into carpet padding.”
Wood from the mattress frames typically ends up being ground into compost or processed for biomass fuel. However, the presence of staples in the wooden frames complicates these reuse efforts.
The textiles from mattress toppers face a tougher market due to low demand. Some of this fabric can be converted into insulation, while innovative experiments are underway to transform it through a baking process into carbon elements for use in batteries, potentially powering electric vehicles, Smith noted.
“Pilot projects are also exploring the use of foam as a concrete additive, enhancing strength,” Smith said. “Another innovative initiative is investigating the foam’s potential for use as an oil spill absorbent, providing an eco-friendly alternative to newly manufactured sponges. Researchers are also working on transforming foam into pellets that can be molded into various products such as cell phone cases and industrial gaskets.”
Landfill disposal brings its own challenges, with mattresses often requiring up to 100 years to break down completely and sometimes getting stuck in compactors. The Mattress Recycling Council reports that every ton of discarded mattresses recycled preserves 99 cubic yards of landfill. Considering Americans dispose of an estimated 15 to 20 million mattresses each year, that’s a lot of space that recycling efforts can save.
The number of mattresses that MRC has recycled has grown over the past decade. However, after a peak in the final years of the pandemic, the growth has slowed or remained flat, depending upon the state.
Courtesy of Binghampton Development Corporation
“Recycling mattresses is important because it conserves valuable resources; and by using mattress materials to make new products, energy is saved, water is conserved and greenhouse gas emissions are prevented,” O’Donnell said. “It also supports local economies by creating jobs and preventing illegal dumping.”
At the local level
The MRC manages the state “Bye Bye Mattress” programs by using collected fees to contract with local governments or private haulers to establish drop-off sites, including at landfills or transfer stations, and with recycling organizations that dismantle the mattresses. It also organizes bulk pickups from institutions like hotels and colleges.
In Long Beach, California, an estimated 18,000 mattresses are illegally dumped in Long Beach each year, which was the catalyst for the Department of Public Works’ Clean Team hosting mattress drop-off events on the first Saturday of every month in April 2023. The program was aimed at reducing blight and the potential health risk associated with illegally dumped mattresses by eliminating homes for pests like rats and insects.
The city sends collected mattresses to an MRC facility, where they are cut open and sorted by material type. A 90-day pilot program for 24/7 mattress drop off began last August and was made permanent in November, allowing residents to drop off mattresses free of charge.
“The mattress drop-off program provides a convenient and accessible option for Long Beach residents to properly dispose of used mattresses,” said Jose Bedolla, Clean Team superintendent for the city. “By offering this service year-round, the city’s Clean Team can redirect their efforts from collecting illegally dumped mattresses in public spaces to other critical services that maintain a healthy and safe environment.”
He added that diverting mattress materials from landfills not only reduces the amount of waste generated in Long Beach but also brings the city closer to its emissions reduction goals. Residents that can’t bring their mattresses to the drop-off site can still recycle their mattresses responsibly by requesting a special collection online or by phone.
Bedolla noted that while Long Beach’s mattress recycling program doesn’t provide direct job training, it does utilize the assistance of the Conservation Corps of Long Beach, which provides workforce development
opportunities for young adults.
A helping hand
A number of mattress recycling programs have a secondary component of social assistance, as they offer people who are down on their luck — those recently out of prison or rehab, those part of disadvantaged communities and so on — the chance to build basic job skills.
A group of Belmont University students came up with the idea for Spring Back Recycling in 2012, then partnered with Belmont Church and their Isaiah 58 ministry to enact it in Nashville, said Tiano, the Isaiah 58 chief operation officer. Two years later, Spring Back partnered with the Davidson County Sheriff Department to provide transitional employment to inmates upon release and recycled more than 80,000 mattresses that year.
Over time, the program grew to working with multiple halfway houses in the area to employ and teach life skills to people recovering from substance abuse and addiction.
“People generally need a place to live and a positive environment, and then they need something to do every day that is safe,” Tiano said. “We put this idea into play and made it work, and learned along the way. We wanted to change the lives of men, and therefore their families and the community for the better.”
Originally, the thought was that Spring Back would be franchised, but while that didn’t happen, the idea was shared with other organizations and new independently-owned locations popped up around the U.S., including in Salt Lake City and Commerce City, Colorado.
Workers at all three facilities slash, tear apart and crush mattresses to separate out foam, cotton, steel, wood and the fabric, and the materials go into items like car seats, dog beds, carpet padding and insulation.
Tiano noted there are tons of success stories of men whose lives have changed because of the program, but one of his favorite examples is someone who started recycling mattresses 10 years ago, had multiple children and was fresh out of jail for failing to pay child support. He’s now the warehouse manager for Spring Back Nashville.
“He now has his own place, his own car, and two years ago he got full custody of his 11-year-old daughter,” Tiano said. “The generational effect of that is tremendous. You’re not only changing his life, but the life of his daughter as well.”
Andy Kizzee, business hub director of Binghampton Development Corporation, a nonprofit in Memphis, Tennessee, said its mattress recycling program also was inspired by Spring Back. BDC processes around 200-400 mattresses a month. More than 100 people have taken part in the program, with almost half now employed in full-time jobs elsewhere.
“We’re hoping to grow and break into larger quantities from retailers and bigger institutions,” Kizzee said.
Second Chance Recycling in Minnesota began mattress recycling in 2008. Four years later, it teamed with Furnish Office & Home and Rebuild Resources to form Momentum Enterprises, which then merged with Emerge Community Development in 2015 to focus on community impact.
“Emerge helps people find work and get off welfare, so Second Chance is pretty much staffed by those recently released from incarceration or as condition of their parole; we don’t ask questions, we bring them in and help them,” said Shawn Dolan, general manager of Second Chance. “We teach them good work skills and how to recycle the mattresses, and this is transitional employment.”
The training can include forklift training, safety and security. Those in the program learn the proper way to cut and dismantle the different mattress components, with runners moving and separating the materials into bailers and other equipment.
“The metal is all bailed into large 250-pound rolls and goes to metal recyclers, and that has the most consistent demand,” Dolan said. “The wood from the box springs are crushed into a compactor, and wood recyclers will then grind them for mulch. We bail a bunch of cotton as well, which goes to a textile recycler and turns it into new fabric.”
By recycling 70,000 mattresses a year, Second Chance Recycling keeps the equivalent of a full year of waste from more than 2,800 households out of landfills. Many are picked up from residents, and others come from retailers, mattress manufacturers, hotels and multifamily properties.
“People don’t have any idea how hard it is for mattresses to decompose; it’s a huge fire risk, they don’t crush and take up an enormous amount of room,” Dolan said. “There are hundreds of thousands of mattresses that don’t get recycled, and more needs to be done.”
Modernizing bottle bills could bring U.S. recycling up to speed with other systems around the world. | Josep Curto/Shutterstock
This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
The United States is grappling with a growing recycling crisis. Despite decades of environmental campaigns and investments in recycling infrastructure, recycling rates have stagnated, with many states seeing declines. According to Ball Packaging’s latest 50 States of Recycling report, only 32% of the material value in the packaging waste stream is being captured for recycling, leading to an estimated $6.5 billion worth of valuable materials lost to landfills annually.
Beverage containers — aluminum cans, plastic bottles and glass — are some of the most recyclable materials, yet millions still go to waste each year. In fact, between 2015 and 2024, an estimated 1.5 trillion beverage containers were wasted in the U.S., including 785 billion PET bottles, 553 billion metal cans and 220 billion glass bottles, according to Reloop’s What We Waste Dashboard. Americans wasted an average of 504 beverage containers per person in 2024 alone, including 60 glass bottles, 181 metal cans and 263 PET bottles. If current collection rates remain unchanged, an additional 878.6 billion beverage containers are expected to be wasted between 2025 and 2029.
Deposit return systems, known as “bottle bills” in the U.S., offer a proven solution. Operating in 57 jurisdictions worldwide, including 10 U.S. states, these programs incentivize recycling by attaching refundable deposits to beverage containers, encouraging consumers to return them to designated collection points. In the last four years alone, 11 countries and territories have introduced a deposit system including two Australian states, Austria, Slovakia, Latvia, Malta, Romania, and the Republic of Ireland.
If a national best-in-class DRS were introduced today in the U.S., an estimated 447 billion units of beverage containers could be captured instead of lost. This includes 206.4 billion PET bottles, 172.8 billion metal cans and 68.5 billion glass bottles. Recycling these 447 billion containers could generate nearly 30.7 million metric tons of material for reuse, valued at approximately $5.5 billion at 2024 prices, while avoiding over 31 million metric tons of carbon emissions — equivalent to not burning 17.4 million tons of coal or saving 3.5 billion gallons of gasoline.
In 2023, nine of the 10 states with the highest recycling rates had bottle bill programs, the Ball report found. On average, states with DRS recycle 27% more packaging (excluding fiber and flexible plastics) through closed-loop end markets compared to non-DRS states (34% versus 7%). For PET bottles specifically, states with bottle bills recycle over 3.5 times more on a per-capita basis than those without. Although these 10 states represent just 27% of the U.S. population, they account for 47% of all packaging (excluding film and flexible packaging) recycled and 51% of all beverage containers recycled nationwide.
Despite these successes, there remains significant untapped potential. Expanding and modernizing existing bottle bill programs, as well as introducing new ones in states without them, could dramatically boost recycling rates, reduce waste and recover billions of dollars in valuable materials currently lost to disposal. Additionally, these programs could provide brand owners with an increased supply of recycled feedstock, helping them meet both voluntary and legislated recycled content targets.
While states with DRS consistently outperform their non-DRS counterparts, many U.S. bottle bill programs are outdated and underperform compared to international leaders.
Reloop’s Global Deposit Book 2024, released in December, revealed that the average return rate for single-use beverage containers in U.S. DRS programs was just 62% in 2023, much lower than the European average of 87% and the Canadian average of 76%.
The latest return rates in deposit return systems for single-use beverage containers in the U.S. (excludes material collected from curbside recycling programs or MRFs).
Why do U.S. programs lag, and what can be done?
Reloop’s analysis of over 55 deposit return systems worldwide highlights three critical factors that significantly impact return rates:
Deposit values: Higher deposit values are strongly correlated with higher return rates. Reloop’s data shows that jurisdictions with minimum deposits below 10 cents achieve a median return rate of 69%, while those with deposits of at least 15 cents reach a median return rate of 92%.
In 2023, Michigan and Oregon were the only two states with a $0.10 minimum deposit, and they achieved two of the top three return rates among U.S. bottle bill programs. However, $0.10 is much lower than deposits in most leading international DRS programs, such as Germany ($0.26, all figures in U.S. dollars), Norway ($0.18-$0.26), Finland ($0.10-$0.41) and Denmark ($0.14-$0.42), where return rates exceed 90%.
Many U.S. bottle bill programs have also failed to adjust deposit amounts for inflation, eroding their value over time. This reduces the incentive for consumers to participate and contributes to return fatigue, where the effort of returning containers outweighs the perceived reward. Oregon’s experience demonstrates the impact of increasing deposit values: when the state doubled its deposit from $0.05 to $0.10 in 2017, the redemption rate climbed 22% within three years.
Convenient return processes: Accessibility of return options plays a major role in DRS performance. Jurisdictions with a return-to-retail model — where retailers are legally required to accept container returns and pay out refunds — achieve a median return rate of 84%. This is significantly higher than the 69% median return rate in jurisdictions relying on redemption centers or a hybrid model, where redemption centers operate alongside retail stores.
Among U.S. states with bottle bills, only Michigan operates a pure R2R model. Michigan law mandates that retailers accept containers of the same kinds, sizes and brands they sell, with no opt-out provisions. In contrast, other states operate hybrid redemption models that often allow retailers to opt out if they meet certain criteria, such as proximity to a redemption center. These systems are less convenient than R2R models, which allow consumers to return containers where they shop.
Comprehensive program scope: Programs with broad scopes that include a wide range of beverages and container types consistently achieve higher return rates. New York’s experience highlights this: When water bottles were added to its system in 2009, the number of PET plastic containers returned for recycling doubled, according to a 2021 report from Tomra, which manufactures sorters and other recycling equipment. Similarly, Denmark provides a compelling example.
Despite already achieving a world-leading beverage packaging recycling rate of 90% in 2018, the Danish government expanded its DRS in 2020 to include single-use juice and concentrate bottles, which it projected would result in an additional 52 million bottles being recycled annually, increasing the volume of recyclable packaging in the system by 4-5%.
In the U.S., some states exclude significant beverage categories from their bottle bill programs, such as non-carbonated beverages (e.g., bottled water, juice, milk), wine and spirits, and sports drinks. These exclusions limit the volume of materials captured and the program’s overall effectiveness.
Latest return rates in deposit return systems for single-use beverage containers, by redemption model (excludes material collected from curbside recycling programs or MRFs).
Progress and challenges
Several states are making strides toward modernizing their bottle bill programs, even as challenges remain.
In Connecticut, the program was expanded to cover additional beverages (noncarbonated beverages, hard cider, and malt-based seltzer) in January 2023, and the deposit amount doubled from $0.05 to $0.10 on Jan. 1, 2024. Early results are promising: By Q3 2024, Connecticut reported a return rate of 74.2%, a nearly 24-point jump from the end of 2023 and a 29-point increase compared to Q3 2023. This marks the state’s highest quarterly return rate since December 2013 (76.1%), according to state data.
California has also taken major steps forward. Effective Jan. 1, 2024, its bottle bill now includes wine and distilled spirits, as well as 100% fruit and vegetable juices. According to the Container Recycling Institute, these changes have resulted in the recycling of over half a billion additional bottles and cans annually.
Other states, including Massachusetts and New York, have encountered obstacles in their modernization efforts. In Massachusetts, a proposal to increase deposit values, handling fees and beverage coverage as part of a broader climate bill failed to pass before the legislative session ended. Similarly, New York’s proposed 2024 updates, which aimed to raise deposit values and expand program scope, didn’t advance. Despite these setbacks, the ongoing discussions signal growing interest in improving DRS programs nationwide.
What’s driving global momentum for DRS?
Beyond the U.S., the adoption of deposit systems is rapidly accelerating, as an increasing number of governments recognize their effectiveness in boosting recycling rates and tackling the global challenges of plastic pollution and climate change.
Reloop’s Global Deposit Book 2024 reveals that as of January, nearly 357 million people worldwide live in jurisdictions with DRS for single-use beverage containers. With the expected implementation of already-announced legislation, this figure is expected to grow to approximately 641 million people across 70 jurisdictions by the end of 2027. Among the countries and regions set to launch new DRS programs in the coming years are Poland (October 2025), Turkey (2025), the Australian state of Tasmania (2025), the Czech Republic (2026), Singapore (2026), Portugal (2026) and the four nations of the U.K. (2027). Spain is also expected to introduce a DRS by the end of 2026. A recent government report from Madrid confirmed that Spain fell short of its 2023 target to separately collect 70% of plastic bottles, triggering a legal requirement to implement a DRS within two years.
Growth of population covered by deposit return systems for single-use beverage containers (1970-2004 actual; 2025-2027 projected).
This global surge in DRS adoption is fueled by several key factors:
Proven effectiveness: DRS consistently outperforms other collection systems, achieving recovery rates of 90% or higher for beverage containers. Glass Packaging Institute data shows that glass bottle recycling rates are 63% in DRS states compared to just 24% in non-DRS states. Similar differences can be seen for aluminum cans: The 10 states with DRS boast an average aluminum can recycling rate of 68% compared to an average of 22% in non-DRS states. A 2024 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study concluded that implementing a nationwide DRS in the U.S. could significantly increase the U.S. recycling rate for PET bottles, from 29% (2022) to 82%.
Legislated recycling targets: The European Union’s new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, adopted in 2024, mandates a 90% separate collection for recycling rate for plastic bottles and cans by 2029. To meet this target, member states must implement a DRS unless they achieve an 80% collection rate by 2026. Although member states can avoid DRS if they reach the 80% target, it will be nearly impossible for many of them, with current collection rates below 60% (e.g., Spain, France, and Italy), to do so without a DRS in place.
Strong public support: Multiple recent polls highlight this widespread approval for such systems. A 2022 nationwide survey of U.S. voters from the Aluminum Association found that 81% were in favor of DRS programs, with strong support across all political and demographic groups. A 2024 poll of Massachusetts residents showed that 87% were in support of having a bottle bill program and that 82% were in favor of expanding it to cover additional beverages. Respondents cited municipal and taxpayer savings, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved recycling outcomes as key benefits.
Increasing industry support: Major industry groups, including the Can Manufacturers Institute and Aluminum Association, have endorsed DRS as essential for securing clean materials to meet sustainability goals. In its latest aluminum beverage can recycling rate targets progress report, the Aluminum Association and CMI identify the implementation of well-designed DRSs at both the state and federal levels as a key strategy for making progress toward achieving its aluminum can recycling targets. According to the CMI, a national DRS could deliver a 48-percentage point increase in the U.S. aluminum beverage can recycling rate (50 billion more aluminum beverage cans would be recycled).
Recycled content mandates: Legislation requiring recycled content in packaging has increased demand for high-quality recyclables. DRS programs are uniquely positioned to supply clean, uncontaminated materials, ensuring manufacturers meet these requirements efficiently. The 2024 MIT study found that the supply needs of packaging producers could be met through a nationwide DRS with a 10-cent deposit at a net cost of about 1 cent per bottle produced when demand is strong.
Conclusion: A clear path forward
The U.S. recycling system is at a crossroads. Stagnating recycling rates and the loss of valuable materials highlight the urgent need for systemic change. Among the potential solutions, bottle bills — especially when modernized — are a proven and effective tool for addressing these systemic issues.
Modernizing deposit return systems by increasing deposit values, expanding coverage to include a broader range of beverage containers and improving accessibility and convenience for consumers can unlock their full potential. These enhancements would transform the U.S. recycling landscape by not only driving higher recycling rates but also recapturing billions of dollars in material value that would otherwise be lost to landfills or incineration. Not to mention the recovered and recycled U.S.-made RPET could be sold not only to domestic end users but also to meet Europe’s growing demand for RPET — providing a significant boost to the U.S. economy.
The momentum is already building. States such as Connecticut and California have demonstrated that modernized DRS programs can deliver measurable results in a short period. Moreover, industry stakeholders increasingly recognize the value of these systems in securing clean, high-quality recyclables to meet sustainability and recycled content mandates. Aligning U.S. programs with global best practices can ensure the country remains competitive in a world moving decisively toward a circular economy. The path forward is clear: Modernizing DRS in the U.S. is not just a choice but a necessity for a circular economy.
Clarissa Morawski is the CEO and co-founder of Reloop Platform, an international nonprofit focused on advancing circular economy initiatives. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Samantha Millette, research and analysis manager for Reloop Platform, can be reached at [email protected].
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with more recent data, so some figures differ slightly from what appeared in print.
Nonprofits and companies across the country, including Goodwill, Trashie and Cocona Labs, are all tackling the textile recycling problem from multiple angles. | triocean/Shutterstock
This article appeared in the January 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
Published: January 10, 2025 Updated: by Jennifer Bogs
Stokkete/Shutterstock
This article appeared in the January 2025 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.
Across all consumer goods categories, the U.S. is striving to limit packaging waste and to slow the flow of landfill contributions. Regulators and environmentalists know that time is running out to combat climate change and that moving from a linear to circular model is one of the most effective strategies for preserving materials, reducing resource consumption and decreasing production-related emissions. Yet recycling rates in the U.S. continue to fall short of their potential — largely due to a lack of access and understanding for consumers. This raises the question: If we could simply improve consumer recycling habits of consumers for even one type of packaging, how much could we shift future recycling rates and landfill volumes?
Aluminum as a clear avenue
The beverage can serves as a package with unique opportunity for moving the needle, given its market-ready path toward a greater circular economy. While most modern consumers know that the beverage can is a recyclable item, many do not understand just how impactful that recyclability is in terms of the bigger picture. Used beverage cans are able to be recycled from an empty can to a new can on the shelf in as few as 60 days — a remarkable turnaround that not only saves precious materials from landfill but also saves more than 90% of the energy required in production using virgin materials.
Aluminum cans are also one of the highest-valued formats in the recycling stream given the fact that they can be recycled an infinite number of times without loss of properties like strength and durability. In fact, the Can Manufacturers Institute says that the profit from aluminum beverage cans effectively enables the entire recycling system to operate — typically accounting for more than 33% of the revenue at an average MRF, more than any other single material commodity.
Unfortunately, the majority of consumers are unaware of the importance of UBCs for recycling systems and are not always committed to making responsible choices for material disposal, leaving a tremendous opportunity gap for greater collection.
Creating care and commitment within consumers
While there are numerous ways to make beverage can recycling easier for consumers, there is no action without buy-in. Consumers must feel connected to the products they are using as well as
personally responsible for their choices in order to develop new, more productive habits.
With this in mind, driving consumer education about the damaging effects of landfill waste and resource consumption on the future of our planet, as well as the benefits of properly disposing of key packaging formats like the beverage can, helps to drive more mindful behavior and long-term stewardship.
When a consumer knows that the way they interact with just one beverage can plays a tangible role in a potential environmental outcome, they are more apt to do their part.
Often this education can be done in tandem with localized events where can collection is active and accessible. Some examples include:
Sponsoring contests at sporting events: Various minor league teams around the U.S. have received sponsorship support from manufacturers and beverage brands to hold a collection contest of all used beverage packaging in stadium and arena stands, incentivizing responsible disposal and recycling on-site while providing longer-term education and reminders to all attendees along the way.
Hosting competitions at schools: CMI has led a One Million Can Challenge with elementary schools in key regions of the U.S. to drive awareness of the importance of UBC collection not only with families and communities but with the younger generation, who can develop impactful habits early on.
Creating greater accessibility in high-consumption areas: Metal packaging industry initiatives like Every Can Counts continue to meet consumers where they are, placing recycling ambassadors at local festivals, community parks, academic institutions and other high-traffic areas where passersby can be taught to be more thoughtful about recycling in relation to their daily activities and lifestyles.
Strength in numbers
Ultimately, when it comes to increasing national recycling rates, it is imperative we remember that small actions can create significant impact. Focusing on one substrate, and partnering with one school or one neighborhood to drive more awareness, can be part of a much larger patchwork of efforts happening across the U.S. With the mindset that no one initiative is too minor, we stand a chance to advance the circular economy and foster a much healthier environment long-term.
Jennifer Bogs is a global director of sustainability at Crown overseeing the strategy and implementation of the company’s sustainability program at approximately 400 locations in 40 countries while leading a global team of sustainability professionals. She has 20-plus years’ experience in the environmental field and 9-plus years of experience in sustainability.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Resource Recycling, Inc. If you have a subject you wish to cover in an op-ed, please send a short proposal to [email protected] for consideration.
This article appeared in the January 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
Designing packaging for recyclability is an important part of building a circular economy. For plastics, structures that are designed with consideration for existing recycling methods can contribute to higher-
quality recyclate and help strengthen the supply of post-consumer recycled material in the future. Although it involves a thorough understanding of downstream collection and recycling processes, designing for recyclability really begins with upstream producers.
Beyond performance and aesthetics, examining packaging from a recycler’s point of view involves considering how the package could be collected, sorted and processed. Because mechanical recycling is the most widely available recycling method today, many companies are moving toward mono-material packaging designs that could enable higher-yield PCR feedstock bales in the future. However, mono-material structures must be able to meet the necessary barrier and sealing requirements of incumbent structures to be a viable alternative to mixed-material laminates and films. Balancing these performance requirements, equipment capabilities and consumer expectations of how the package should function can prove quite difficult for brand owners.
How can the packaging industry advance technology innovations that fulfill all of these specifications? Through their studies exploring how to build a circular economy, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has identified external input and breaking down silos as two key ingredients for a successful upstream innovation process. Brand owners know the type of product and experience they want to deliver to consumers. Suppliers understand the capabilities and limitations of different materials. Bringing various areas of expertise together through cross-value-chain collaboration streamlines and accelerates the commercialization of packaging solutions that deliver the desired experience for consumers while considering the post-use cycle of the product.
The growing availability of high-density biaxially oriented polyethylene is one example that illustrates how resin suppliers, film manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers worked together to bring a new PE material to market that enables new types of mono-material packaging. Working with biaxial film manufacturers like Inteplast, Nova Chemicals expanded BOPE-HD availability and capacity by running trials and collaborating closely with the experts in biaxial film production. These relationships helped refine the BOPE-HD formulation to meet converter and brand owner requirements. “Every step of the value chain has to work together in order to make sure that we end up with a product that meets the needs of the market,” said Latricia Fry, market and business development manager at Inteplast.
Market demands
The development of BOPE-HD began with an increased interest in mono-material PE solutions from brand owners. Motivated by NGOs like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, emerging extended producer responsibility legislation and consumer preferences, many companies have made sustainability commitments related to making packaging recyclable and incorporating PCR materials.
PE is suitable for a wide variety of packaging applications due to its moisture barrier properties. While HDPE has established recycling streams and is one of the most recycled types of plastics, the majority of flexible packaging films end up as waste. Store drop-off programs are currently the only consumer recycling program for plastic films on a large scale, and they only accept a portion of PE flexible packaging. GreenBlue, the organization behind the How2Recycle labeling system, reports that only 36% of program members’ flexible packaging qualifies for store drop-off recycling, while the remaining 64% is not yet accepted.
In light of its versatility and its developing options for recycling, PE is a common choice for mono-material packaging designs. When Inteplast began exploring BOPE, they started with linear low-density
PE but discovered that it could not meet all of their customers’ needs. The goal of designing mono-material structures is to replace multi-material PET and PE laminates. These materials demonstrate high stiffness and heat resistance, and LLDPE could not meet the same types of processing requirements. The market was demanding an HDPE solution.
Product development
Nova Chemicals started down a new path altogether when they began developing their BOPE-HD resin for tenter frame lines, as the process requires a different formula than blown PE film. To create the resin that could run on commercial tenter frame lines, including lines designed for biaxially oriented polypropylene, they had to create a completely new formula that would not slow down or limit production. As all operators work on maximizing line speed, maintaining productivity for the new HDPE material was essential, though working with HDPE in this process is technically challenging. To develop a functional resin that could be widely adopted, Nova formed strategic relationships with film manufacturers.
Nova and Inteplast embarked on a journey to test resin formulations and production processes for the BOPE-HD resin. The Nova team conducted trials on Inteplast’s tenter frame lines. Nova and Inteplast team members attended OEM demonstrations together to better understand how the resins could run on existing and new equipment. At Nova’s Centre for Performance Applications in Calgary, Inteplast and other brand owners tested films on converting equipment and shared feedback to improve the functionality of the resin.
Benefits of collaboration
Developing a new product requires lots of testing and many different iterations. The exchange of information and an open dialogue between multiple industry players throughout the process aligns everyone’s objectives, helping teams pursue the right research and modifications. “Any time a packaging design changes, there will never be a drop-in solution that solves everyone’s problems,” Fry explained. “Adjustments will always need to be made, and sharing feedback during the development stage ensures that we are all following the right path and narrowing in on our process.”
For mono-material structures, new films need to work within existing production capabilities to be competitive and profitable. Collaboration enables new developments that account for the manufacturing, processing and performance needs throughout the entire packaging value chain. “Collaboration really is the only way we’re going to be able to solve the demand for circularity when it comes to flexible films,” said Fry.
The industry must focus on creating accessible mono-material packaging solutions that provide an alternative to non-recyclable, mixed-material films. As the world comes together to increase plastic recycling and reduce plastic waste, it is important to start these system-level changes with existing opportunities like packaging designed for store drop-off programs and optimized for mechanical recycling processes. Downstream solutions alone will not be able to tackle plastic without upstream innovation supported by diverse teams and collaborative thinking.
Brant Wunderlich has extensive experience in the packaging industry and is currently the team leader for application development and circular economy at Nova Chemicals, a leading producer of polyethylene resin that strives to solve industry challenges and circular solutions for our customers and organizations across the value chain.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Resource Recycling, Inc. If you have a subject you wish to cover in an op-ed, please send a short proposal to [email protected] for consideration.
The recycling and packaging industries are preparing for the next presidential administration’s promised tariffs in several ways, several experts said. | Huguette Roe/Shutterstock
This article appeared in the January 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
As the January inauguration approaches — and with it, the prospect of new, higher tariffs — views on the potential impacts are mixed among the recycling industry, several officials said in recent weeks. However, market participants largely agreed that the implementation of such tariffs remains far from certain.
On Nov. 25, President-elect Donald Trump threatened hefty tariffs on Canada and Mexico to take effect on his first day of office this month, saying they’re meant to stop drugs and undocumented immigrants from entering the U.S. During the campaign he also shared plans for blanket tariffs on almost all imports regardless of country, according to Reuters and other news outlets.
Even before the threatened increase in tariffs, major exporters in China and Southeast Asia started producing faster to ship products to the U.S. ahead of Trump’s inauguration, said Hannah Zhao, director of fiber at commodity pricing and analysis agency Fastmarkets RISI. As in many packaging sectors, the fourth quarter of each year is traditionally weak, but this year orders for paper packaging, such as containerboard and boxboard, suddenly increased to “preload” the price to the U.S., increasing demand for recycled fiber.
Similar dynamics are at play in plastics, said James Derrico, vice president of new business at CellMark, a large brokerage for recycled materials including plastic bales and resins.
Ahead of the tariffs, CellMark imported extra PET and recycled PET resin to help hedge against anticipated higher pricing, he said. “A lot of other industries have the same idea, and the reason we know that is because the ocean freights jumped up pretty dramatically on importing material to the U.S. that looked like it could potentially be hurt with tariffs.”
Derrico remained optimistic that Canada and Mexico would not resort to retaliatory tariffs, because the customers overseas still need materials. An increase in prices was more likely than a decrease in trade volumes, he added.
As Chris Goger, senior director of recycling at recycled materials broker Blackbridge Investments, put it: “Who knows how it’ll actually take shape? And so it’s kind of hard to make sense of it, but at the same time, you can’t just say, oh, we’ll worry about it if and when it happens.”
Fiber supply and demand
In the wake of China’s 2018 implementation of a ban on imports of scrap material, a policy known as National Sword, India and Southeast Asia have become prime destinations for U.S. recovered paper. These countries pulp the recovered paper and then send it to China for packaging manufacture.
India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam combined to receive nearly 40% of U.S. recovered fiber exports in January-October 2024, according to U.S. International Trade Commission data. Mexico accounted for about 15% and China received just under 10% of the total. Canada received only 5%.
So if Chinese demand for recycled fiber were to fall, so too would Asian demand for U.S. exports, and “that definitely will impact the U.S. recovered paper market,” Zhao said.
In addition, tariffs on certain developing nations — so-called BRICS countries such as India and Brazil — would likely mean a slowdown in goods imported to the U.S. and further weaken demand for paper packaging, should they support an alternative currency to the U.S. dollar, she said.
Likewise, Mexican manufacturing of consumer goods relies on U.S. demand, said Derek Mahlburg, economist and director of North American paper and packaging at Fastmarkets RISI. “Their demand for importing containerboard from the U.S. is just going to go down, period,” he said. “And this is regardless of whether we were to see any kind of retaliatory tariffs.”
In general, weak manufacturing of consumer goods leads to decreased demand for packaging, he said, pointing to thedrop in OCC prices in 2019 following increased trade restrictions during Trump’s first term.
“China is a huge driver of what happens to U.S. prices,” Mahlburg said. “There’s only so much decoupling that can happen really because of how much U.S. recycled fiber does get exported.”
Plastic dynamics
As was seen starting in 2023, widely available cheap imports for both virgin PET and RPET dampened demand for domestic RPET, which remained at a significant price premium. With tariffs in place, however, the opposite could occur, according to Marcelo Wasem, research and analysis director for PET at Chemical Market Analytics.
Although increasing tariffs on Chinese material would have no impact due to the dearth of resin originating there, “for Mexico and Canada, yeah, we have a huge impact,” Wasem said.
The U.S. is a net importer of virgin PET, and he said imports supply around 30% of demand requirements, with Mexico representing about 18% and Canada 6-7%.
“What we can predict at this point is that an increase in tariffs in those countries will have naturally an increase of imports from Asia,” he said, adding that 65% of imports come not from China but from South Korea, Taiwan and southeast Asia. The increase in demand would subsequently push up deep-sea freight rates, Wasem said.
Although over the past two years RPET buying on the spot market has increased only during shortages of virgin PET, Wasem said increased buying would push up prices for RPET but still could incentivize usage of RPET over virgin material.
“We have two components of demand: One is the natural demand for sustainability initiatives, companies trying to introduce more recycled PET in their products,” he said. “And the other component is directly related with how long or short the virgin PET market is.” If the U.S. has any constraints on PET supply, “players will naturally move to the recycled market to get more volumes.”
Because of its reliance on the U.S. PET market, Mexico eventually would run out of export alternatives and be forced to reduce plant operating rates, he said.
In a late July investor call — well before the threat of tariffs — Jorge Young, CEO of Mexico-based PET producer Alpek, said the North American trade deficit for PET “probably peaked in 2022 with more than 1 million tons of PET deficit in the Americas. It’s been trending down slightly.”
With anti-dumping duties already in place for imported Chinese PET, Mexico’s imports originate mostly from other Asian countries, Young said, though “the prices from the non-China origins are not as low as China.” Nevertheless, Asian countries besides China still have “a relatively high percentage of their capacity that is again available for exports.” He expected Mexico to continue to face an uphill battle for market share.
For PE markets, Morales said a trade war would ultimately hurt domestic converters, “the consumer would pay, and it would hurt profitability of these North American countries, which kind of goes against the whole point of trying to make a better economy, not worse.”
Over the past few years, vast new U.S. capacity for virgin PE — and the resulting oversupply and low pricing — has cut deeply into demand for post-consumer HDPE. Recycling processors struggle to compete with virgin resin that may be priced closer to feedstock post-consumer bales.
However, Morales said, with emphasis growing on recycled content targets, recycled HDPE prices remain elevated, and “we’re setting ourselves up for another whiplash, possibly in 2025.” Even tariff-inflated virgin PE values were unlikely to be sufficient to incentivize use of recycled HDPE, he said.
Published: January 10, 2025 Updated: by Keith Loria
The expansion of the New York City Department of Sanitation’s Staten Island Compost Facility and addition of new equipment increased the facility’s capacity to turn food waste into compost by nearly 2,000%. | Courtesy of Michael Appleton, New York City Mayoral Photography Office.
This article appeared in the January 2025 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
As communities grapple with the challenges of material management and environmental preservation, organic collection has become a crucial strategy to reduce landfill overflow, enrich soil health and promote a sustainable future in both the country’s largest city and one of its smallest communities.
Holden Village, an isolated retreat center in Washington’s North Cascades Mountains with fewer than 200 residents, and New York City, home to more than 8 million, have both launched programs for food scraps and other organics that reflect their unique environments and needs, community leaders said.
After years of trying to get an organics collection program underway in New York, the passage of the Zero Waste Act, introduced by Council Member Shahana Hanif and approved by Mayor Eric Adams last year, made residential curbside organics collection mandatory for all residents.
“Local Law 85 of 2023, which I’m proud to have authored, is a groundbreaking initiative (that) will divert organic waste from landfills, reduce harmful emissions, enrich our soil, power our homes and creates a cleaner, greener, rat-resistant sanitation system,” Hanif said in an email. “The climate crisis is no longer a distant threat — it’s here, flooding our streets, polluting our air, scorching our summers and sparking fires in our urban forests. Now is the time for bold, decisive action, and mandatory composting is a critical part of that solution.”
The city’s Department of Sanitation finished rolling out the program on Oct. 6, with residents of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island required to separate their food scraps into a separate bin from their trash and recycling for curbside collection. Service had already been implemented for Queens and Brooklyn in the last two years.
With all five boroughs of New York now participating, New York now has the nation’s largest residential curbside organics program. Vincent Gragnani, press secretary for the sanitation department, said previous attempts included obstacles like bin requirements and signup requirements that discouraged participation.
“The Adams Administration set out to eliminate those obstacles and launched the nation’s largest and easiest curbside composting program,” he wrote in an email. “There’s no signup required, no requirement to use a specific bin and no confusion about pickup dates. Residents simply put their material out on their recycling day in a sealed bin, with a liner if they choose, and we pick it up and turn it into compost or renewable energy.”
Holden Village, a retreat and tourist community rooted in the Lutheran tradition, has been recycling and composting since the 1970s but wanted a larger, more reliable compost process, said Nathan McClure, who currently serves as Holden’s “garbologist.” The community last year upgraded to an enclosed, aerated bunker composting system from Green Mountain Technologies, partly in response to high disposal costs. All of its food scraps go into compost for local landscaping and ecosystem restoration.
“Holden Village has clearly demonstrated that if there is the will, there is a way to make recycling happen,” Rik Langendoen, director of environmental services at Green Mountain, said in a written statement. “They are a great role model for every community.”
Van Calvez, Green Mountain Technologies’ composting systems engineer who designed the system at Holden Village, has worked with both small communities and large municipal-built systems for cities. Whether looking at Holden Village or New York’s process, each approaches composting in the same way, only the size is different.
“The biological processes for facilitating a hot, aerobic composting process are the same regardless of scale,” he said. “However, the equipment and infrastructure needed varies considerably. The type of technology that is needed for a small community scale is entirely different than what is needed at a bigger municipal scale.”
Sanitation workers collect compost in Queens. | Courtesy New York City Department of Sanitation.
Size matters
New York studied other successful programs in North America and learned that one of the keys to success was an early emphasis on yard trimmings, as residents already separate them from trash.
“This is one of the reasons we launched curbside composting in the early fall … when many residents are getting rid of leaves,” Gragnani said. “Of course, we accept all food and yard waste, and we continue to remind New Yorkers, ‘if you cook it or grow it, you can throw it.’”
While participation is mandatory, the department is focused on education at first and will begin issuing summonses for noncompliance in April. Fines for buildings with one to eight units start at $25 for the first offense, increase to $50 for the second offense, and rise to $100 for the third and any subsequent infractions. Meanwhile, larger buildings face fines starting at $100 for the first violation, escalating thereafter.
“Some material collected is composted while some goes to anaerobic digesters, but all compostable material is put to beneficial use,” Gragnani said. “Biogas produced in the digestion process and used to heat local homes and businesses takes the place of methane that would otherwise be fracked. This is a beneficial use for this material, far, far better than transporting it to landfill, where it would release methane into the atmosphere.”
The Staten Island Compost facility has produced nearly 42 million pounds of finished compost per year over the last several years. Historically, about 60% of the finished compost is sold to landscapers and 40% is given away to community groups, parks, residents and others, including free givebacks at the facility and in Brooklyn.
“We have several new contracts that, in light of the program’s recent citywide expansion, are diversifying where we send organic material collected and preventing overburdening one neighborhood,” Gragnani said. “And in light of the recent expansion, we are drastically increasing the number of districts whose material becomes composted while decreasing the number of districts sending material to anaerobic digesters.”
The program, though still facing some challenges from residents who are new to organics sorting, has been performing well since implementation.
In fiscal year 2024, which concluded on June 30, New York City collected around 130,000 tons of organic material, according to the sanitation department. This marked an increase of over 23% compared to the previous year, attributed mostly to the organics collected through the curbside program in Brooklyn and Queens. That number is expected to reach over 200,000 tons next year with the program now running in all five boroughs.
“We are fully dedicated to educating the community about this issue,” Gragnani said. “We remain optimistic and have every reason to believe that we’ll continue to see growth in the numbers.”
Small but mighty
In Holden Village’s dining room, where all of the community meals are served, any food left on plate is scraped into big trashcans along with any kitchen scraps. They’re then weighed and dumped into the composting system.
Originally, compost was put into pits dug into the ground, but being in a wilderness setting, that attracted bears and other animals. Three-walled bins also drew wildlife. The village began working with Green Mountain in 2009, McClure said.
“We had gotten a couple of their older systems called Earth Tubs, which are augers with a lid over it that spins around, so it was like a massive immersion blender to chop up the food waste and also fluff it up and aerate it as it goes along,” he said.
That system was in place for about 15 years, and last May the two partnered again on a newer, bigger system using an in-vessel system of three aerated bunkers, comprising 18 cubic yards of space for food and wood fiber collected within the village. It was installed inside a utility shop to withstand the heavy winter snowfall.
“With this new system having much more space, we are able to get everything in and give it the time it needs to cook, to fully break down before we take it out,” McClure said.
The isolated Holden Village community diverts most of its waste from landfills, according to community leadership. | Courtesy of Hannah Johnson
The aeration system, which operates on a timer, optimizes oxygen levels for effective microbial activity, and staff monitor temperature and moisture regularly. Once filled, each bunker processes the compost for eight to ten weeks with minimal need for mixing. The finished compost is then distributed within the village and used for local restoration projects, including mine remediation and areas affected by forest fires.
Holden Village also has a comprehensive recycling program, with separate storage containers for electronics, metal, plastic, cardboard and paper that are then shipped down to various centers on the eastern side of the Cascades. McClure estimates that the community diverts more than 90% of its solid waste away from landfills.
“It takes a lot of hands-on work and a lot of community involvement with all of the people here,” said McClure, who is part of a staff of 150 that shrinks to around 60 in the winter. “In 2023, 35,000 pounds of food waste was collected.”
McClure keeps tabs on other organics programs in the U.S., and although smaller than most cities and communities, he finds ideas and tips to be more efficient with composting and recycling.
He credits Calvez with helping to fine-tune the program and utilize whatever the community has on hand.
“The reason why this system works for them, in my opinion, is that it’s custom-built, designed specifically for this application,” Calvez said. “This was really a collaborative design process based on their needs.”
This article appeared in the December 2024 issue of Resource Recycling.Subscribe today for access to all print content.
As the demand for plastic packaging continues to grow because of its benefits for protecting food and lightweighting, consumer preferences and government legislation are driving brand owners to rethink the way plastic packaging products are used and recycled. To address concerns about waste, pollution and human and environmental health, packaging producers are searching for ways to transition to a more plastic circular economy. In a circular model of consumption, one of the primary goals is to divert plastic waste from landfills and keep materials in the economy in high-value applications as long as possible.
In addition to redesigning packaging for recyclability, many companies are setting ambitious goals to increase the use of post-consumer recycled materials in their packaging by 2030. Some organizations are also investing in recycling projects to process post-consumer materials. Despite this momentum, some of the world’s largest brands are already revising their post-consumer resin targets due to difficulties sourcing high-quality recycled plastic feedstock.
The current waste collection and plastic processing infrastructure is not equipped to meet the purity requirements of feedstock for many types of in-demand packaging solutions such as food-contact materials. According to The Recycling Partnership, material recovery facilities vary greatly in their ability to process collected recyclables into outbound commodities, and they estimate that only 79% of post-consumer plastic materials received are actually sorted and processed. McKinsey reports that even the bales that are sorted and sold often consist of multiple types of plastics and non-plastic contaminants and residues, making them unqualified for most types of mechanical recycling and even some chemical recycling processes.
As overall recycling rates in the U.S. stagnate and demand for PCR increases, recyclers are resorting to importing plastic scrap. ICIS reports that 2023 was the first year that the U.S. was a net importer of scrap plastic, bringing in more than 63,000 tons of polyethylene to supplement their PCR capacity. Without an adequate supply of recycled feedstock, it will be impossible for brands to achieve their PCR packaging goals and comply with PCR material mandates such as those enacted in California, Washington, New Jersey and Maine.
Creating high-quality feedstock is a complex opportunity that involves the entire value chain. Regulatory and processing requirements demand materials that can be traced to their origin to ensure safe, high-performing recycled plastics that can be used in food packaging and other high-performing plastic products. Although building the supply chain for recycled feedstock requires many moving parts, with continued collaboration, creativity and investment, the packaging industry can build an economically viable circular economy that supports both plastic recycling and the use of recycled materials.
Complicating factors
There are multiple factors that make plastic recycling complex. For example, there are multiple types of plastic that are further modified by colorants, processing aids, antioxidants and other additives. These substances, along with the recycling and reforming process, impact the possible end uses of the recycled materials. Mixtures of multiple types of plastics can also affect the functionality and structural integrity of the recycled product.
For food-contact PCR materials, recyclers need to establish a chain of custody that includes the source and uses of the material to track additives and chemical contaminants. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that recycled food-contact plastic must meet the same specifications as virgin plastic. The organization reviews each proposed recycling process designed for food-
contact applications. If the process is expected to produce acceptable food-grade materials, a letter of non-objection is issued.
Although not a formal approval or a legally binding document, obtaining an LNO is a best practice for recyclers looking to create food-contact materials. To submit an LNO, recyclers must describe their recycling process, provide surrogate contaminant testing results and explain the intended use of the recycled plastic. Even within post-consumer food packaging, different additives can limit end uses, such as plastics approved only for low-temperature applications or specific food types.
Changing perspectives
Because plastics are so diverse and pure feedstock is so critical, producers, retailers and consumers must all play a part in improving recycling rates and practices. Public education on the value of recycled plastic and the legitimacy of plastic recycling is needed to motivate people to take action. For consumers, that could involve encouraging participation in a variety of recycling options, such as sorting materials in bins for curbside pickup or bringing plastic materials to store drop-off locations.
On the commercial side, businesses must be willing to commit to increased tracking and recordkeeping to validate the chain of custody, including documenting the manufacturers of plastic they use, what it was used to package and what it came in contact with during transportation and storage. Everyone from consumers to businesses has an important role to play in plastics circularity.
Investing in infrastructure
In addition to education on plastic recycling, governments and corporations must work together to increase access to recycling programs. Investing in the recycling infrastructure includes increasing capacity with new facilities and may also involve the development of secondary sortation facilities. Known as plastics recovery facilities, these secondary operations have advanced sorting capabilities that can separate mixed materials that MRFs cannot. Increasing the supply of high-quality PCR bales requires the development of collection networks and validation protocols to create traceable sources of post-consumer plastics. This process should involve the exploration of untapped resources of recyclable materials, such as large users of food packaging like event venues and sports stadiums.
The plastic industry must work together to improve the quality and availability of recycled plastic feedstock. Research into plastics circularity operations estimates that a third of the $50 billion needed to scale up plastic recycling by 2030 should go to feedstock sourcing and preparation. With several extended producer responsibility programs and PCR material mandates in process and many more proposed, the time is now for investing in the changes needed to advance recycling technology and enable high quality PCR materials. Partnerships, supply agreements and joint ventures throughout the plastic value chain are necessary to drive the widescale, system-level change needed to make PCR material mandates achievable and make meaningful progress toward a circular economy.
Alan Schrob is director of mechanical recycling at Nova Chemicals. He spent 20 of his 30 years in the plastics industry encouraging circularity in a variety of roles, including business development, marketing and the rigid and performance films markets.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Resource Recycling, Inc. If you have a subject you wish to cover in an op-ed, please send a short proposal to [email protected] for consideration.
