This article appeared in the March 2025 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.

Jan. 20

The 26 executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office unleashed weeks of missing funding and confusion for recycling programs across the country — problems that have yet to reach a clear conclusion.

Titled “Unleashing American Energy,” one executive order directed all agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, often called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, to ensure that federal spending aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities.

The two laws had dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to new recycling facilities and other initiatives, such as the U.S. EPA’s Recycling Education and Outreach program and its Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling, or SWIFR, grants.

Another order told federal officials to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

Though a huge variety of programs throughout the government have been affected, the Recycling Education and Outreach program, which emphasized environmental justice and reaching multicultural and underserved communities, sits at the crux of these two orders. Below is an account of the administration’s early moves through REO grantees’ perspectives.

Jan. 27

The nonprofit Oregon Community Warehouse in Portland collects donated furniture and other home goods for formerly homeless families, refugees and others in need, which helped it secure a $1.6 million REO grant to spread awareness of its services, especially among the city’s multicultural communities, Communications Manager Phil Gerigscott said.

“As far as we know, we are still receiving funding and that won’t change,” he said, adding he had accessed some of the grant dollars as recently as Jan. 23. “We’re definitely a little nervous, but it seems like hopefully still smooth sailing.”

The organization has long relied solely on word-of-mouth, so the grant was meant for more staff members and contractors, updating the center’s website and developing culturally specific ads — after English, Portland’s most common languages include Spanish, Chinese, Ukrainian and Arabic, Gerigscott said.

The warehouse’s EPA contacts generally had been easy to reach, Gerigscott added. But he hadn’t heard more details about the order. The agency also didn’t return Resource Recycling’s request for comment at the time.

“We’re under the assumption that no news is good news,” Gerigscott said.

Near the end of the day, a new memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget vastly broadened the scope of multiple funding pauses like the “Unleashing American Energy” order.

“Each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders,” wrote Matthew J. Vaeth, the OMB’s acting director.

“In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause (bolded in original) all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

Jan. 28

Uproar against the halted funding came swiftly, with the National Council of Nonprofits and others arguing in the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., that the administration didn’t have the authority to cancel Congress’s appropriations and was violating their constitutional freedoms of expression and assembly. In response, District Judge Loren L. AliKhan placed an administrative stay on the freeze lasting several days.

Meanwhile, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission in Virginia, which had been awarded a $2 million REO grant for a “Start Smart, Recycle Right” outreach campaign, received an email that afternoon from its EPA contact.

“EPA is working diligently to implement President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy Executive Order issued on January 20 in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget,” the EPA wrote. “The agency has paused all funding actions related to the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at this time.”

Gerigscott shared a similar message by text: “We just received official word that funds are halted until further notice.”

At a press conference, Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that the pause was temporary and said she had spoken with Trump’s then-unconfirmed nominee for OMB director, Russell Vought.

“He told me to tell all of you that the line to his office is open for other federal government agencies across the board, and if they feel that programs are necessary and in line with the president’s agenda, then the Office of Management and Budget will review those measures,” Leavitt said.

Jan. 29

Lynn Onstot, spokesperson for the city of Joplin, Missouri, said the city’s REO project was still in its early stages of data-gathering, but its funding hadn’t been affected. Joplin was awarded $1.7 million for a multimedia advertising campaign with a particular focus on partnering with schools, reaching residents of disadvantaged census tracts and increasing participation in Joplin’s opt-in curbside program.

After the administrative stay, Vaeth at the OMB released a two-sentence memo rescinding his earlier one. On the social media site X, Leavitt noted that the early executive orders, including the ones affecting the infrastructure law, weren’t rescinded.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” she wrote. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

Jan. 30

Walking Mountains Science Center in Eagle County, Colorado, was on the cusp of starting in earnest its $570,000 project to train recycling advocates among local Spanish speakers, said Amelia Kovacs, the center’s sustainability programs manager.

“Our grant is very second-half heavy, with creating a drop site, actually tracking beginning and end diversion rates in those priority communities,” she said, and several people were recruited and hired.
The organization had put in a draw-down request for some of its funding the day before, but it hadn’t gone through yet, and the EPA had sent no clarification.

“We’ve been asking them many times, ‘so should we be worried?’” Kovacs said. “It’s clear as mud.”

The organization leans heavily on local and state funding and can carry on without the REO grant, she said. But she’ll likely have to sharply scale down the REO project, if it can continue at all, perhaps by reframing it to support the rollout of the state’s extended producer responsibility policy.

By this point, the administration had eliminated multiple programs protecting civil rights, cancelling the Biden administration’s environmental justice initiatives, suspending refugee aid and putting a freeze on the Justice Department’s civil rights enforcement after rescinding an executive order dating back to the Civil Rights Era that, in its present-day form, banned federal contractors from discriminating against employees because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.

Trump and other officials have said diversity initiatives amount to reverse discrimination.

“In my personal eyes, I see this as a tactic to scare, and for people to kind of shift their eyes away from the good work that is happening in our community,” Kovacs said of the administration’s actions. She wasn’t discouraged from working to reach disadvantaged residents, she added.

“It’s even more reason why we should exist. It gives me more fire, I would say, to continue my work, because to me it feels more necessary than ever.”

Jan. 31

In the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island, another lawsuit against the funding freezes brought by 22 states and D.C. led to a temporary restraining order against the administration, during which the judge said no funding could be frozen.

“Defendants shall also be restrained and prohibited from reissuing, adopting, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to the OMB Directive under any other name or title,” wrote Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr.

Back in Virginia, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission received another message from an EPA official: “Funding has been paused for grants under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at this time. This pause pertains to all funding on existing grants for the SWIFR and REO grant programs. The pause on these grants remains in place even though it has been lifted for other federal grant programs. We will provide more guidance as EPA’s Office of Grants and Debarment makes it available to our program.”

Feb. 3

Judge AliKhan in D.C. granted a similar temporary restraining order, drawing on two centuries of legal tradition to find that the freezes implicated issues of nationwide importance.

“Defendants’ actions appear to suffer from infirmities of a constitutional magnitude,” AliKhan wrote. “The appropriation of the government’s resources is reserved for Congress, not the Executive Branch. And a wealth of legal authority supports this fundamental separation of powers.”

Feb. 6

Amid the back and forth, the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District in New Mexico slowed but didn’t halt its work on a $590,000 grant for collaborating with local schools and other partners in low-income and disadvantaged areas, District Manager Joshua O’Halloran said. It seemed like the EPA was loosening up with the money, so he told staff to work on it on an as-needed basis.

A year into the project, people have been hired and food-scrap composting programs have rolled out at a big middle school and a senior center.

“It’s kind of delayed us and caused a lot of conversations with partners,” O’Halloran said. “We have the risk of losing trust with them, and that was a bigger deal than anything.”

The whiplash from the last administration’s requirements to the current one’s has been confusing and difficult to navigate, he added. The organization’s $3.8 million yearly budget is 98% grant-funded, meaning that there’s no backup money and the REO project can’t continue without its grant. But “regardless of what an administration or the EPA says, we’re going to stick to what’s true for us,” he said.

“Working with all of those people as our constituents is what’s important to us,” O’Halloran added. “We’re not going to change who we are because somebody in Washington tells us that’s what’s important to them.”

Feb. 10

The Chicago-area Metropolitan Mayors Caucus’s last word from the EPA was to pause its $2 million REO grant, said Edith Makra, director of environmental initiatives.

“We were going great guns; in fact, I was supposed to have new staff, my new recycling education and outreach coordinator, starting last Wednesday,” she said. But she couldn’t make a commitment to a new hire.

“We are very, very angry about this,” Makra said. “It’s a kick in the gut to the work that we’re doing across the board.”

Other federal agencies with grants to the caucus have resumed those grants, she added. If EPA’s didn’t, the group wouldn’t have the resources to continue its advertising campaign.

“It’s paused, so I can’t speculate on what that means. It’s not rescinded, and they’re not trying to do a clawback,” Makra said. “But this grant is underway; we’re doing the work, and I never ever would have expected this to happen.”

Back in the Rhode Island District Court, the judge found federal agencies had been disobeying his previous order and keeping funds frozen, ordering them immediately to comply.

Feb. 11

Kerrin O’Brien, executive director of the Michigan Recycling Coalition, said her organization had no trouble accessing its REO grant and had gone ahead and hired two people to meet the grant’s obligation, despite the EPA’s message to pause work.

“We’re bearing that risk right now and committed to our people,” she said.

O’Brien saw the program as vulnerable to the administration’s rejection because of its environmental justice goals, she said, but the work is nonetheless worthwhile.

“Whatever we call it — Justice40, DEI, whatever — there is still demonstrated need throughout Michigan — rural, urban, subrural, suburban — to help people understand how recycling works, how they can participate correctly,” she said. “All of these systems and programs aim to make our economy more productive, aim to make our natural resources work more for us. All Michigan residents really need to know how to participate in effective ways.”

Bob Crum, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, shared similar sentiments.

“This is critical, critical money for us,” he said. “This money was really going to be some important outreach.”

Feb. 12

Hampton Roads received this message from the EPA: “Thank you for your patience. At this point, we can move forward to resume all grant activities with our existing REO grantees, and work to ensure that these grant funds are spent appropriately.”

Feb. 13

O’Halloran at the Ciudad Soil and Water Conservation District in New Mexico said he received a similar message. Could the organization pick up where it left off? “That’s what we’re hoping,” he said.

Feb. 17

Makra said she still hadn’t gotten word of an end to the pause.

“That would be music to my ears,” she said. “You give me hope, though.”

Feb. 20

In an email, EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said: “EPA worked expeditiously to enable payment accounts for IIJA and IRA grant recipients, so funding is now accessible to all recipients.”

This article appeared in the March 2025 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.

The potential merger of U.S. Steel, one of the country’s largest users of recycled metal, with other major steel companies could change the industry’s global landscape. But when it comes to immediate impact on local scrappers and municipal collection programs, mergers and acquisitions generally take a back seat to cold fronts and seasonal thaws, several stakeholders said in recent interviews.

“We’ve had a winter that’s been rougher than we’ve had in the past few years,” said Brad Cook, general manager of the Premier Metals scrapping company in Rochester, New York. “That’s slowed the retail trade down in 2025. Come spring, we’re preparing ourselves to clean the corners and get things going.”
Beyond nature, the extent of any future industry change could depend on how well a given company goes green — and not the green usually associated with recycling.

“Does one company’s relative position put the combined company into a stronger position? Companies in this spot would look at long-term sustainability with a sound economic premise,” said Michael E. Hoffman, CEO of the National Waste & Recycling Association. “A combination of companies could make (incorporating recycled steel) go a little faster.”

What hasn’t been fast is U.S. Steel’s acquisition process, which was subject to federal approval of foreign investments and has therefore moved at a glacial pace, allowing other players to join the game.

Where the deal stands

The proposed $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japanese company Nippon Steel has faced a lot of scrutiny since it was announced in December 2023. The deal has rare bipartisan opposition; then-President Joe Biden blocked the deal in January, citing national security risks of a foreign owner, while successor President Donald Trump has also continued to oppose the deal after taking office.

After meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Trump said in early February that Nippon Steel will shift to investment rather than a takeover. But that plan could fall to the wayside if Cleveland-
Cliffs can buy U.S. Steel, which Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Gonclaves told CNBC in January he wants to do in partnership with Nucor Corp.

The companies represent four of the top 25 steel producers in the world, according to numbers from the World Steel Association: Nippon Steel is fourth, Nucor 15th, Cleveland-Cliffs 22nd and U.S. Steel 24th.
Requests for comment from all four companies went unanswered, but industry experts say recycling is a key component of domestic production.

“Steel producers in the United States recycle significant amounts of steel scrap in their production processes,” said Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute. “Large steel companies clearly have a significant impact on the consumption of steel scrap, and logically then they also have an impact on recycling efforts.”

Doing their part

The companies made an impact on the recycling industry long before any merger talks surfaced. Nippon Steel was one of 15 founding members of the Japan Used Can Treatment Association in 1973. The group was renamed the Japan Steel Can Recycling Association in 2001, advocates for greater steel recycling and hosts and holds educational events in schools.

U.S. Steel has, in the words of CEO David Burritt, woven sustainability into its way of conducting business. In 2021, U.S. Steel acquired Big River Steel in part to bolster its sustainability initiatives. The Osceola, Arkansas, facility earned the ResponsibleSteel Certified Steel designation in fall 2024 thanks in part to a recycled metals use rate of around 90%. Overall, the company in 2023 recycled more than 5.2 million tons of purchased and produced steel scrap while producing 22.4 million tons of raw steel, according to the U.S. Steel 2023 sustainability report.

Cleveland-Cliffs, meanwhile, recycled 6.6 million tons of steel scrap and recovered iron materials, according to its 2023 sustainability report. Nucor eclipses both, recycling 20 million tons of steel annually.

Each company has made individual recycling- and sustainability-related commitments. Those initiatives would presumably continue under combined corporate umbrellas, but what impact that has on steel prices or other aspects of the recycling system remains unclear.

An analysis of recent mergers fails to yield substantive answers, thanks in large part to their timing. Cleveland-Cliffs acquired AK Steel in 2020, right around the time the COVID-19 pandemic began; the pandemic caused iron and steel scrap prices to fall 17.4%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, to $354 per ton.

The Tata Steel/Thyssenkrupp Steel merger in Europe and ArcelorMittal/Essar Steel deal in India happened in 2021, when mid-pandemic supply shortages caused scrap prices to soar from $536.10 per ton in December 2020 to $739.12 months later.

Overall, scrap supply has remained relatively consistent historically, according to Brian Raff, vice president for sustainability and government relations at the American Institute of Steel Construction. The only potential impact could come if something drastic like the shutdown of a company or major mill were to happen.

“A fabricator really doesn’t care” what’s happening at the major companies, he said. “They’re buying steel to meet project requirements. If there’s more capacity (resulting from a merger), if there’s more steel, that’s great.”

Recycling rates likewise show no major movement based on mergers. Data from the American Iron and Steel Institute shows the North American steel recycling rate to be about 69%; it has remained above 60% since 1970.

That consistency comes with the industry’s maturity. The recycling infrastructure in the United States is more sophisticated than that of steel-producing nations like India and China, Dempsey said. Many of the nation’s nearly 18,000 scrap and recycling facilities have been in business for decades, and the National Materials Council estimates there are more than 24,000 municipal recycling programs operating in the U.S.

How steel recycling works

Municipal recycling programs collected 6.36 million tons of steel and other ferrous metals in 2018, according to the U.S. EPA. Cans collected at the curb, for example, are sent to scrap processors, who crush and bundle them before selling to steel-producing companies, Dempsey said.
But curbside activity makes up less than 1% of the steel scrap used by U.S. steel producers, Dempsey said.

Most of the recycled material steel producers use comes from two places.
Recycling processors buy old cars, construction leftovers, broken appliances and other scrap steel, then cut or bale the metal to sell to steel mills.

Prompt scrap — metal that never reached the marketplace, such as leftovers from automobile component manufacturing — is collected by steel companies for reuse.

Mills melt the scrap down at nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Impurities rise to the surface and are skimmed off. The molten metal is shaped and solidified before it’s transported to factories. A recycled item can take its new form in as little as two months.

The cycle never has to end due to steel’s inherent reusability without degradation; the production process allows impurities to be removed. Even those impurities, collectively known as steel slag, are recycled into asphalt and other materials. The Can Corporation of America estimates about 75% of all steel ever produced is still in use in some fashion.

“Most steel scrap can be recycled into virtually any new steel product, so a steel can or deconstructed steel beam can become a new steel beam, or a car door, refrigerator or steel container,” Dempsey said.

Finding scrap steel came more into focus as mills shifted to electric arc furnace technology in the 1970s and 1980s — around the time steel recycling rates began a decades-long climb from around 150,000 tons in 1970 to more than 2 million in 1990, according to U.S. EPA data. These furnaces use electricity to heat material and are fed recycled steel. Traditional blast furnaces need iron ore and coal-based fuel to operate.

Eliminating the need for mined materials, combined with the decreased emissions resulting from production, makes EAF production more sustainable, Hoffman said. Nearly 71% of U.S. steel production happens via EAF.

“The decision to go to electric arc furnace was economic,” he said. “If we were going to produce steel domestically, we had to move to a production method that was more economical.”

All new steel could be made from recycled steel, but scrap scarcity prevents that on a global level, according to the World Steel Association. The average lifespan for a steel product is 40 years, which the organization said prevents a continuous flow of enough product to meet demand.

Dempsey noted the U.S. produces enough ferrous scrap to export about nearly 18 million tons of scrap per year. Hoffman said the country’s long-standing automotive industry has created a generational scrap flow that helps give domestic recycling a leg up on the rest of the world.

Where is the industry going?

There may not be enough scrap to meet producers’ demand, but Cook said the supply domestically always seems to be there — “I’ve been in the business for more than 25 years, and I’ve never seen it stop.”

So any movement by U.S. Steel or other parties may not mean much in the grand recycling scheme. Rather, Dempsey said, companies that can sort scrap more accurately by contaminant level have the advantage, because “the recycling of incoming scrap steel can best be matched to the new steel product’s end use.”

Imports could also have an impact. Whoever owns the major domestic steel companies, they could see an uptick for demand if proposed tariffs on foreign products take effect. That could drive up scrap prices, but since U.S. mills run at about 75% capacity, there’s room to meet a potential demand surge, Raff said.
Dollars are the most important factor, Hoffman said: The bottom line will trump any short-term political motivations when it comes to recycling.

“I would make the case, if you look out 10 years, more metals will be made with recycling, with a green emphasis,” he said. “If you want true, long-term environmentally sound outcomes, they have to stand on the back of a sound economic model.”