The Recycling Partnership releases strategy to improve US recycling

The Partnership has introduced a five-point plan that it says will help to fix the U.S. recycling system:

• Ensure all households can recycle. Forty million U.S. households still cannot recycle at home. Building equitable access to recycling services is the first critical step to a stronger system. Since 2014, The Recycling Partnership says it has delivered more than 1.3 million recycling carts to families all across the country.

• Help the public understand what's recyclable locally. The Partnership’s research shows 60 percent of people believe recycling is confusing. The organization says this is because the United States does not have one single system. Instead, it has a patchwork of 9,000 different community recycling programs, each with its own requirements for what and how to recycle. The Partnership says it has developed a suite of open-source tools and resources to make it easier for people to know what and how to recycle in their towns, including a recycling chatbot that lets consumers know if something is recyclable in their communities.

• Make packaging recyclable. The Partnership says it believes in a future where all packaging is circular, eliminating the guesswork of recycling. To achieve this, the organization provides companies with solutions to help design circular packaging approaches, including its Circular Packaging Assessment Tool and more. The organization says it wants to make a wide range of packaging types recyclable. Through grants and technical assistance, The Partnership is increasing what can be recycled in communities.

• Support policy to help pay for a better recycling system. Cash-strapped communities cannot afford to be the only source of funding for a better recycling system. The Partnership says the country needs a smart policy that requires private-public partnerships so that companies help to pay for a better recycling system. The organization says it works with the government at all levels to develop policy solutions that will accelerate progress.

• Invest in the future. The Partnership says the country needs a $17 billion investment over five years to deliver the benefits of recycling to the public. That represents 0.5 percent of annual sales of the U.S. consumer packaged goods industry over that same period, and with smart policy, that investment will come from private-public partnerships. The return on that investment is $30 billion over 10 years, according to The Partnership.

“The steps are clear,” Harrison says. “We know how to provide the public with an accessible, easy-to-use and fully modernized recycling system. All we need now is for companies, communities, government and all other recycling stakeholders to take action so we can make the plan a reality.”