Addressing the packaging recovery problem

It’s no secret that when it comes to household-generated paper and plastics, the U.S. has a recovery problem. Recent reports, including those published by The Recycling Partnership (TRP), Washington, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), have revealed gaps in packaging recovery, highlighting missed economic opportunity and room for improvement across all material types.

At this year’s Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference (PPRC), Oct. 23-24 in Chicago, speakers at the Do We Have a Recovery Problem? session echoed this sentiment and answered the question with a resounding “Yes.”

The session’s speakers included Myles Cohen, founder of Atlanta-based consultancy Circular Ventures LLC and a board member at Switzerland-based Vipa Group; Anelia Milbrandt, senior research analyst at NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center, based in Golden, Colorado; Scott Mouw, senior director of strategy and research at Washington-based TRP; and Johnny Gold, president of the Gold Group and paper specialist at Davis Index.

Residential recycling accounts for an estimated 8 percent of all recycled materials, according to data presented by the speakers.

“A lot of money gets thrown at household recycling, but 92 percent of what we recycle in this country comes from industrial, commercial, institutional and retail,” Cohen said. “[About] 5.8 million tons of over 40 million tons of paper… comes from residential.”

Within these material streams, paper accounts for approximately 50-65 percent.

Despite millions of dollars of investments in residential recycling, the number of tons recycled over the last decade in many cities is either flat or down, Cohen said, citing collection and processing costs as hindrances.

Cities collect about 3-6 pounds of recyclables per household per week compared with an estimated collection cost of $300-450-per ton. One city pays as much as $690 per ton for curbside collection, Cohen said.

“We’re driving $300,000 trucks around neighborhoods and we’re picking up 3 pounds at a time,” he added. “We’re collecting material that is worth about $100 a ton, and it’s costing us [up to] $600 and, in one case, almost $700 a ton to collect it, plus the processing cost on top of it.”

Cohen and Mouw confirmed that a $90-per-ton processing fee is low for single-stream recycling, and a $125 fee is more common.

Collection and processing costs, high contamination rates and gaps in recycling access and education are factors that have contributed to the amount of paper and packaging materials lost to landfills annually.

Missed opportunities

Recent data have revealed that more paper products are sent to landfills than previously thought.

According to a report published by NREL in December 2023 that was comprised of data from 2019, paper in U.S. landfills represents $4 billion in lost economic value, while plastic represents $7.2 billion.

The lab surveyed over 1,700 landfills and 85 combustion facilities and reviewed 52 waste composition studies by material type at the state, county and local levels. It found that paper and cardboard are the largest municipal solid waste (MSW) categories generated and, together, paper and plastic represented approximately 40 percent, or approximately 186 million tons, of MSW managed in the U.S. in 2019.

Of those 186 million tons, an estimated 68 million tons of paper products and 40 million tons of plastic were landfilled that year.

NREL’s findings show 38 percent of discarded paper and cardboard is recycled, while 6 percent is combusted and 56 percent goes to landfills.

Milbrandt highlighted the potential for compostable paper products, such as paper towels, napkins and soiled pizza boxes, to be converted to energy through aerobic and anaerobic digestion and other waste-to-energy (WTE) processes, as the report reveals that compostable paper is landfilled at a rate of 90 percent.

“We are missing a great opportunity to reclaim the energy that’s being used to produce this material,” Milbrandt said.

The NREL report, which focused on landfilled paper products, analyzed material nationally and regionally— Pacific, Rocky Mountain, Midwest, Southwest, Southeast and Northeast.

Overall, the Southeast had the highest percentage of paper and cardboard landfilled from MSW at about 25 percent, while the Pacific had the lowest at about 17 percent.

The financial impact of landfilled paper and plastic is not insignificant. Together, landfilled packaging represents $11 billion in lost market value, plus $6 billion in disposal costs.

Plastic’s recovery rate comes as no surprise to Milbrandt.

“We’ve known that the rates have been low, but [this] highlights the need and the opportunities for improvement,” she said. “Based on our research, recycling rates [for paper and cardboard] are lower than we thought before.”

The state of residential recycling

Gaps in residential recycling accessibility, education and participation have exacerbated the recovery problem.

A TRP report from earlier this year, “State of Recycling: Present and Future of Residential Recycling in the U.S.,” shows only 21 percent of 47 million tons of residential recyclables are recycled annually, while 76 percent are disposed of at the household level and 3 percent are lost in residuals at material recovery facilities (MRFs).

“We have done a lot of studies very specific to households and their recycling behavior, and we know that even the people who recycle don’t recycle everything,” Mouw said. “They recycle about two-thirds of their recyclables.”

Forty-three percent of households in the U.S. participate in recycling, and nonparticipation is because of both lack of access and insufficient communication and outreach, Mouw explained. Approximately 7 million single-family households in the U.S. do not have access to recycling services, and the number is even higher for multifamily properties; approximately 19.5 million multifamily households are without equitable access to recycling, meaning on-property access.

Mouw highlighted five key factors affecting residential recovery: recycling access, material acceptance, participation rate, participation capture rate and MRF capture rate.

“Three percent of the loss [in recyclables] comes from MRFs not operating at 100 percent efficiency,” he said. “If every commodity that came in the front door went out the back as a commodity, that 3 percent would disappear and it would be a nonfactor.”

Variation in accepted materials lists by location influences the types of materials lost as well.

“If we all compared, you’d have different collection lists specific to you by your municipality,” Mouw said. “It drives us all crazy there’s not one standard list.”

Old corrugated containers (OCC) are the most widely accepted packaging material across the U.S., boasting a 90 percent national acceptance rate. PET and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles are at 89 percent, mixed paper is at 88 percent and PET thermoforms are at 54 percent, while polyethylene (PE) film has only a 3 percent acceptance rate, according to data Mouw presented.

Of all the commodities, TRP’s research indicates cardboard has the highest residential recycling rate: 32 percent.

“Each commodity has different challenges,” Mouw said.

In Mouw’s perfect system—with 100 percent access to recycling, where all commodities can be recycled, 9 out of 10 households participate by putting at least 80 percent of recyclables in the bin every collection cycle and MRFs only lose 5 percent of materials—TRP determines a 68 percent national recycling rate can be achieved.

“Each one of those things would have to be improved,” Mouw explained. “We think they can be improved in a policy environment under EPR [extended producer responsibility].”

Making improvements

EPR has been one of the key solutions proposed to improve packaging recovery rates in the U.S.

Under EPR in Oregon, legislators are trying to boost recovery by establishing standard MRF capture rates for the different commodities. While some of Oregon’s proposed capture rates only see 1 to 2 percent increases over a three-year period—OCC would go from 96 percent to 97 percent, for example—other commodities would see steeper increases. HDPE bottles and containers would go from an 88 percent proposed capture rate in July 2025 to 95 percent in January 2028.

Producer responsibility organizations (PROs) are required to improve MRF processing in Oregon through funding, which, according to Mouw, should allow them to meet their targets.

“It’s an important moment that a state is now regulating how efficient MRFs are,” he said.

Cohen highlighted another proposed solution; mixed waste processing, also known as dirty MRFs or the one-bin system, which would combine recycling and refuse bins to make recycling and disposal easier for residents.

“I don’t think that’s viable,” Gold said. “Paper mills are in the business to make money. They compete on a daily basis … against virgin [material]. You must have clean secondary fiber recovery, [and] it’s been difficult enough with single-stream.”

“We have to adjust contamination on the front end,” Mouw added, echoing Gold’s doubts about mixed-waste processing. “We have to address the efficiency of MRFs, and maybe that’s a little bit more costly than mixed waste processing, but you’re not going to get the quality or the quantity of the material.”

Another way to improve overall packaging recovery, including industrial, commerical and institutional packaging, is to shift funding to include small commercial operations as well. While big box stores and shopping malls generate revenue from recycling and tend to have higher recovery rates, Cohen suggested developing funding for small businesses to improve recycling.

Under EPR in Colorado, the state plans to close the gap on small commercial collection between 2030-2035, which will be made possible through funding from PROs. By alleviating the high-margin cost decision from the small business or community, the barrier preventing the recovery of more material is removed.

“This is why EPR is important,” Mouw said. “It switches the financing to the products we actually consume and brings that financing forward to improve the system.”

The author is digital editor of the Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at tkazdin@gie.net.