WasteExpo 2021: Working toward a national recycling strategy

Speakers during the WasteExpo session Implementing a National Vision for Recycling agreed that the U.S. recycling system would benefit from standardization and investment as the country attempts to meet the 50 percent recycling rate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has called for by 2030. Nena Shaw of the EPA’s Office of Land and Environmental Management said the recycling goal is intended “to inspire action and drive participation, innovation and progress across the entire value chain.”

Prior to announcing the 2030 recycling goal, the EPA released a draft National Recycling Strategy in October of last year, seeking comments from the public through Dec. 4, 2020. The EPA received 156 public comments letters and anticipates releasing its final version of the strategy this summer, Shaw told attendees of the WasteExpo session.

In a prerecorded video that was played during the June 28 session, she provided additional details on the EPA’s work related to recycling.

A national strategy

“We are at a unique moment when there are so many policy drivers coming into alignment to positively impact our work,” Shaw said. “Congress, industry, nonprofits, the international community and the American public all want to see an improved recycling sector.”

She said legislative action related to recycling at the state and federal levels aligns with President Biden’s priorities of addressing climate change, reducing impacts on communities that have environmental concerns, providing good jobs and protecting public health. “All of this interest has really been building in the last few years,” Shaw said, citing annual America Recycles Summits the EPA has hosted since 2018 that bring together leaders from industry, nonprofits and all levels of government to discuss opportunities to advance recycling in the U.S.

While the bipartisan Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, which was enacted in December of last year, provides the EPA the authority to act on domestic recycling through new grant programs, it does not provide funding for those grants. Shaw said that might change in fiscal year 2022.

“I am thrilled to announce that in the president’s budget for fiscal year 2022, EPA is requesting $10 million from Congress to support a solid waste infrastructure for recycling pilot grant program,” she continued. “If Congress provides funding, this pilot grant program will build innovation in the recycling industry while reducing waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating jobs. As you all know, recycled materials serve as important feedstocks in American manufacturing and further contribute to our economy by further creating domestic jobs.”

Among the many benefits of recycling, Shaw noted, is that it creates more jobs than landfilling and incinerating materials.

“While there are many benefits to recycling, we need to ensure that all communities can reap these benefits,” she continued, citing the focus on environmental justice under Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

Shaw said, “recycling is essential in combating climate change,” noting that mining and processing of natural resources account for about 50 percent of total greenhouse gases. “Global resource consumption has tripled over the last 40 years.”

She added, “Recycling helps keep materials in use, which decreases habitat destruction and biodiversity loss associated with mining finite resources. The connections between materials usage, the economy and the environment underscore why sustainable resource management is critical to our nation’s health and prosperity.”

The EPA has identified several actions that would aid in managing materials more sustainably and equitably, Shaw said. “We need to be more conscious in our consumption and best promote material reduction and reuse. We need to enhance our recycling system to reduce our collective environmental impact. We need companies and innovators to design out waste and to design products that keep materials in the supply chain as long as possible. We need to implement materials management strategies that are inclusive of communities with environmental justice concerns. We need to pursue innovations that offer the benefits of cleaner and safer processing of materials. We need to grow and support end markets for recycled commodities and harness the purchasing power of the federal government. When governments and organizations purchase products made from recycled content, we drive demand for recycled materials, and we make the system more economically viable. And, lastly, we need to continue investment in our recycling and materials management infrastructure.”

Later this year, she said, the EPA will release an updated methodology for calculating the national recycling rate along with a national recycling measurement guide to help local governments, states and others standardize the way they measure recycling.

“Currently, there’s a lot of variability in how we measure recycling rates across the United States,” Shaw continued. “The recycling measurement guide will reflect what materials management pathways EPA recommends be included for measuring a recycling rate. The guide will provide a standardized way of calculating a recycling rate to allow states and local governments to track progress against the national recycling goal.”

Shaw said the EPA’s National Recycling Strategy will reflect the Biden administration’s goals and the comments it has received from the public in its outline of the actions needed from across the value chain to help reach the national recycling goal.

“For this strategy to be successful, we need all entities from the federal, state and local governments to private individuals and trade associations to make commitments and take action,” she said. “We are driving toward transformative change.”

Professional perspectives

 

In addition to Shaw’s prerecorded speech, panelists Brent Bell, who serves as vice president of recycling for Houston-based Waste Management, and Michelle Leonard, senior vice president at SCS Engineers, Long Beach, California, fielded questions from moderator Anne Germain, chief operating officer and senior vice president of technical and regulatory affairs at the National Waste & Recycling Association, Arlington, Virginia, as well as from attendees, on recycling in the U.S.  

On the topic of policy surrounding recycled content in products and packaging, Leonard said she preferred incentivizing the use of recycled content rather than penalizing companies for not doing so.

Bell noted that, unlike other manufacturers, material recovery facility (MRF) operators take in material daily regardless of end-market demand. “Having demand is where it starts,” he said, noting Waste Management’s recent work with Cascade Cart Solutions to integrate recycled plastic made from bulky rigid plastics collected in curbside recycling programs into curbside carts Waste Management purchases. “Shame on us for not doing that before.”

“We are the market,” Leonard added, stressing the importance of buying products with recycled content, whether for personal or professional use.

Germain noted that the U.S. recycling rate has been stuck in the 32 to 33 percent range for the last decade. Bell said he expected lightweighting of packaging played a role, noting that 100,000 polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are needed to make 1 ton today compared with 60,000 in the past. “Lightweighting is great because it reduces the overall carbon footprint, but it has a toll on us” as a MRF operator, he added.

Leonard said she suspected lightweighting was just one of many factors affecting the national recycling rate. That list also includes contamination, processing inefficiencies and a lack of legislation that incentivizes the use of recycled content.

Education plays a role in addressing the issue of contamination.  Bell said Waste Management is focusing on materials that are widely accepted and on communicating the hazardous items that are not accepted.

“The need for education just continues,” Leonard said, advocating in favor of behavioral change messaging and community-based social marketing to tackle contamination in the recycling stream.

Regarding measuring recycling rates, Leonard said having a consistent measurement system is important. “Weight it probably the best way to do this, though the case can be made for volumetric measurement when it comes to contamination,” she added.

When asked whether downcycling should be avoided, Bell said, “If you can replace virgin materials with recycled, that’s a win.”

“I don’t know that it’s one or the other,” Leonard added, noting that circularity means using a material until it can’t be used anymore.

WasteExpo 2021 was June 28-30 in Las Vegas.