Plastics industry unveils $500 million federal recycling legislation

Washington — Two members of Congress and a coalition of businesses and trade groups in plastics, waste management and other materials unveiled a $500 million legislative plan Nov. 15 that would allocate federal funding to beef up recycling and waste management.

The Realizing the Economic Opportunities and Values of Expanding Recycling Act, or Recover Act, would set aside $500 million in federal matching funds for states, local governments and tribes to invest in improving recycling infrastructure. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., and Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind.

"Today, our nation is facing a recycling crisis due to inadequate infrastructure and the inability to keep up with waste stream contamination," Bucshon said in a statement. "Without the proper recycling infrastructure in place, we will not have the capacity to recycle waste items and they will either end up in a landfill, our oceans or elsewhere in the environment as litter."

The legislation is supported by the Plastics Industry Association, the American Chemistry Council and the Vinyl Institute, in addition to plastics companies Berry Global, Kenrich Petrochemicals and Erema. As well, industry associations in the flexible packaging, glass and solid waste sectors have signed on, along with PepsiCo. Inc. and Unilever plc.

"This bipartisan bill will help address the infrastructure shortcomings that can contribute to recyclable materials ending up in our oceans and waterways, and we look forward to working with representatives to move it forward," said Tony Radoszewski, president and CEO of the Washington-based Plastics Industry Association.

A statement from Cárdenas said that in addition to the $500 million, the legislation requires the Environmental Protection Agency to submit a report within two years of its passage on steps taken to implement it. The bill would also preclude using EPA funds to support incineration, Cárdenas said.

"Through public-private partnerships and a new grants program, we will help communities across the nation with the creation and modernization of their recycling infrastructure," Cárdenas said.

The bill matches a broad outline of multiyear federal legislation that the plastics industry has been discussing, including the $500 million figure.

Industry officials have said it could be used to fund things like upgrades to material recovery facilities to better handle flexible film and other new kinds of packaging, similar to a demonstration project the industry is supporting at a MRF in Pennsylvania.

While the $500 million could represent a sizable increase in federal dollars, one expert said it's well short of the overall need.

The U.S. recycling infrastructure has a funding shortfall approaching $10 billion for basics like making sure communities have the trucks and staff they need, said Keefe Harrison, CEO of the Recycling Partnership, an industry-funded group that supports development of recycling.

"[For the] basic leveling up we have like a $9 billion-plus price tag to get there," she said at an Environmental Protection Agency Recycling Summit Nov. 15 in Washington.

She said landfilling garbage is, on average, half the cost of recycling for cities and called on policymakers to address the "doubling or tripling" of operational costs for recycling that some local governments are facing.

There seems to be growing support in Congress for doing more. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., for example, has called for development of national policies around recycling and held hearings on plastics recycling as chair of a House Research and Technology subcommittee.

"I strongly believe that the federal government must do more to help state and local governments deal with the costs and logistical burden of recycling," Stevens said in a separate Nov. 15 news release.

There are increasingly detailed discussions around how to pay for expanded recycling systems.

Lawmakers like Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., are preparing legislation that would put more responsibility on companies that use plastic packaging to pay for recycling and ban some single-use plastics.

In California, where legislative pressure is strongest, the American Chemistry Council has proposed a fee on disposable foodservice packaging of three-tenths of a cent per item on all types, not just plastics, an idea that could be picked up in federal legislation.

As well in California, there's a separate push for a referendum vote in the November 2020 elections for a 1-cent fee on plastic packaging to fund waste and recycling programs.

State and city recycling programs are struggling with the "drastic" impact of China's National Sword policy in 2018, according to a Nov. 6 statement from the National Conference of Environmental Legislators. That policy change in Beijing cut Chinese imports of scrap plastic by 99 percent and took away what had been the largest market for U.S. cities, NCEL said.

State policymakers are pursuing two broad solutions — directing more tax dollars toward improving recycling infrastructure and looking at so-called extended producer responsibility systems that require companies to pay more to manage packaging waste, said Altinay Karasapan, environmental health coordinator for the Washington-based NCEL.

"While Washington [state's] Sustainable Recycling Act and similar bills like Massachusetts' H 2830 use public dollars to improve recycling, states are also looking into ways to make producers of plastic responsible for the waste they create," she wrote. "Ultimately, no states have signed legislation into law that would implement an EPR system for plastic packaging, but 2019 marked notable progress."

Similarly, a Nov. 14 report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund said states are being impacted differently but overall are not adequately reducing waste and adjusting to the challenging conditions for recycling.

"The hard truth is that plastics are difficult to recycle and aren't worth much," said U.S. PIRG Education Fund President Faye Park. "This reality means that we could only consistently afford to collect and recycle it when China and its neighbors were willing to buy it."

NCEL said state lawmakers see it as important to improve waste management and create cost-effective domestic markets for recyclables and are recycling funds and development centers. They will also likely pursue more EPR laws in 2020, Karasapan said.

While there are many ways to evaluate a material's environmental impact beyond recycling, an annual U.S. EPA report on municipal waste management released Nov. 14 showed that plastics is well behind competing materials on recycling rates.

EPA said that overall, 8.4 percent of plastics were recycled in 2017, compared with 65.9 percent of paper and paperboard, 26.6 percent of glass and 16.2 percent of aluminum.

When only containers and packaging are examined, the EPA said 13.0 percent of plastics were recycled in 2017, compared to 50.1 percent for all types. That includes 73.3 percent for paper and paperboard, 32.8 percent for aluminum, 33.9 percent for glass and 73.1 percent for steel, EPA said.