Recycling in the United States

National efforts

On a national level, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees a variety of waste issues. These include regulation of hazardous wastes, landfill regulations, and setting recycling goals. More specific recycling legislation is localized through city or state governments. Further regulation is reserved for individual states to create. State regulation falls into two major categories: landfill bans and recycling goals. Landfill bans make it illegal to dispose of enumerated items in a landfill. Most often these items include yard waste, oil, and recyclables easily collected in curbside recycling programs. States with landfill bans of recyclables include Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and North Carolina. Other states focus on recycling goals. These include California and Illinois. Some ways that states encourage recycling of specific drink containers is by passing a bottle bill.

A number of U.S. states, such as California, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa, Michigan, and New York have passed these laws that establish deposits or refund values on beverage containers in order to promote reuse and recycling. Most are five cents per can or bottle. Michigan's deposit is 10 cents and has been since 1976.

Mandatory recycling

Some cities, such as Seattle, and states like Connecticut, have created mandatory recycling laws that may fine citizens who throw away certain recyclable materials. Vermont also employed a landfill ban of recyclable materials, food and yard waste, and wood. There are also voluntary programs and educational programs to increase recycling where it is not mandated by law.

Mandatory recycling is the standard e.g. across all European Union since the 1990s. Recyclables are prohibited from households, businesses and apartment garbage. With businesses that would include cardboard, paper, and yard waste which would be prohibited from their garbage. For apartments and houses, glass, paper, cardboard, aluminum, and plastic would be prohibited. With businesses and apartments, if garbage collectors find more than 10 percent of the container filled with recyclables, they will leave a tag. On the third tag, they will then leave a $50 fine. However, with households there can be no fining. If they do find garbage, they will leave a tag and ask you to sort out your garbage that they will then collect the next week.

Criticism of mandatory recycling

In a 1996 article in The New York Times, John Tierney claimed that government mandated recycling wastes more resources than it saves. Tierney's article received a referenced critique from the Environmental Defense Fund, which noted that "the article relied heavily on quotes and information supplied by a group of consultants and think tanks that have strong ideological objections to recycling".

In 2003, Daniel K. Benjamin (a professor of economics at Clemson University) published a paper through the Property & Environment Research Center that reiterated many of the points brought up in the New York Times article, backing them up with a detailed inquiry into the recycling industry of the US. In 2010, he followed up on that with an updated look into the recycling policies of the US, finding that not much has changed.

Financial implications

When recycling was a newer industry, it cost as much or more than trash disposal. Some opponents of recycling argued that state support for recycling may be more financially expensive in the short term than alternatives such as landfill; recycling efforts in New York City cost $57 million per year in 2002. To refute this argument people pointed out that the benefits to society from recycling compensate for any difference in cost. Landfilling waste is an inefficient use of resources, contributes to global warming through the release of methane into the atmosphere and by the pollution of groundwater and waterways. The long term financial costs of remediating pollution caused by landfilling waste are often not taken into consideration.

However, in many areas, there is now an economic incentive to recycle. As early as 2003, Fort Worth Texas was making $1,000,000 from their recycling program. Similarly, Waukesha County's recycling program in Wisconsin began operating with positive revenues in 2004. Most recently, Waukesha County began receiving a $6.50 per ton bonus for recyclables coming into their private MRF (Materials Recycling Facility). Combining that with average revenue from the sale of the materials and the extra cost incurred if the items were landfilled, the average total lost revenue (county's share) for recyclables thrown in the landfill is $112.50.

Recycling statistics

Recycling statistics:

Recycling by material type

The city of Ann Arbor, for example, has contracted with a local non-profit organization Recycle Ann Arbor to provide curbside recycling services and public recycling centers. The town of Oyster Bay in New York has managed the program S.O.R.T. (Separate Oyster Bay's Recyclables Today) since 1987. As of 2017, S.O.R.T. services over 79,000 households and 1,200 places of business. The program issues all Oyster Bay residents a 20-gallon can to deposit metal, plastic and glass recyclables into. Waste collection vehicles collect recyclable waste twice a week and deliver it to recycling plants, where it is then recycled. Oyster Bay has the largest recycling program in New York State, larger than Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Buffalo

E-waste

Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. Used electronics which are destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling, or disposal are also considered e-waste. Informal processing of e-waste in developing countries can lead to adverse human health effects and environmental pollution.

Electronic scrap components, such as CPUs, contain potentially harmful components such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants. Recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to workers and communities in developed countries and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaking of materials such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it is important to dispose of electronics via recycling because,"Electronic products are made from valuable resources and materials, including metals, plastics, and glass, all of which require energy to mine and manufacture. Donating or recycling consumer electronics conserves our natural resources and avoids air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by manufacturing virgin materials." Consumer recycling options include donating equipment directly to organizations in need, sending devices directly back to their original manufacturers, or getting components to a convenient recycler or refurbisher.

Tires

The Environmental Protection Agency reports 290 million scrap tires were generated in 2003. Of the 290 million, 45 million of these scrap tires were used to make automotive and truck tire re-treads. With landfills minimizing their acceptance of whole tires and the health and environmental risks of stockpiling tires, many new markets have been created for scrap tires. Growing markets exist for a majority of scrap tires produced every year, supported by state and local government. Tires are also often recycled for use on basketball courts and new shoe products. However, material recovered from waste tires, known as "crumb" is generally only a cheap "filler" material and is rarely used in high volumes.

Tires are not desired at landfills, due to their large volumes and 75% void space, which quickly consumes valuable space. As of 2003, 38 states banned whole tires from landfills, 35 allowed shredded tires, 11 banned all tires from landfills, 17 allowed processed tires in mono-fills, and 8 states had no restrictions on scrap tires in landfills.

The United States has decreased the number of waste tires in storage from 700-800 million in 1994, down to 275 million tires in 2004 primarily due to state scrap management programs.

US state laws and regulations dealing with scrap tires are currently enacted in 48 states. Here are some common features of state programs that deal with scrap tires: source of funding for the program; licensing or registration of scrap tire haulers, processors, and end users; manifests for scrap tire shipments; limitations on who may handle scrap tires; financial assurance requirements for scrap tire handlers; and market development activities. Some state programs are now supported by fees charged to the consumer at purchase or disposal of each tire. These fees, sometimes called “tipping fees”, help to support recycling costs. When the disposal rates charged to consumers are set high, this, in turn, discourages landfill disposal, a simple solution encouraging more affordable tire recycling programs.

Early history

The first recorded mass recycling program, "Ban The Can", was conceived and executed in 1970 by Ruth "Pat" Webb in Honolulu Hawaii. She organized military and civilian volunteers to collect over 9 tons of metal cans from the roadways and highways of Oahu. The metal cans were later recycled into steel reinforcement bars to be used in local construction projects.

The Stanolind Recycling Plant was in operation as early 1947. Another early recycling mill was Waste Techniques, built in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1972. Waste Techniques was sold to Frank Keel in 1978, and resold to BFI in 1981. Woodbury, New Jersey was the first city in the United States to mandate recycling. Led by Donald Sanderson who was President of Woodbury City Council and Woodbury Recycling Committee in the early 1970s, the idea of towing a "recycling" trailer behind a waste management vehicle to enable the collection of trash and recyclable material at the same time emerged. Other towns and cities soon followed suit, and today many cities in the U.S. make recycling a requirement.

In 1987, the Mobro 4000 barge hauled garbage from New York to North Carolina; where it was denied. It was then sent to Belize; where it was denied as well. Finally, the barge returned to New York and the garbage was incinerated. The incident led to heated discussions in the media about waste disposal and recycling. The incident is often referred to as igniting the recycling "hysteria" of the 1990s.

Recycling education

Integrating recycling into K-12 educational system has become a goal for many educators. Usually, it is integrated into science or social studies classrooms. This is due to its inclusion in the national education standards for both of these subject areas. Common areas that recycling is integrated into the curriculum include areas such as the study of natural resources, general environmental units, soil units, water units, community units, economic units, and geography units. Although interest is growing, major textbook publishers do not always include recycling in a textbook so teachers are left to supplement the textbooks with outside curriculum to meet the national standards. For example, in a unit about trees or natural resources teachers could include supplemental curriculum about recycling because in the textbook it is never explicitly covered. Non-profit organizations as well as governmental organizations have created supplemental curriculum for teachers to fill this void. Some purely non-profit groups include the Center for a New American Dream and Be SMART. Other creators of curriculum include governmental offices. Some of these include Oregon, California, and Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Also, some non-profit organizations have partnered with sections of the government to collaborate on educational materials. For example, the Keystone Center partnered with the United States Department of Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory to create curriculum on global warming.

America Recycles Day

America Recycles Day (ARD) is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. ARD is celebrated annually on November 15. The World Recycling Day celebrated in most countries, though falls on July 8. Thousands of events are held across the U.S. to raise awareness about the importance of recycling and to encourage American to sign personal pledges to recycle and buy products made from recycled materials.

Started by the recycling sector organization National Recycling Coalition in 1997, America Recycles Day has been a program of national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful since 2009. As the managing entity of America Recycles Day, Keep America Beautiful provides promotional and marketing support and resources to a network of local event organizers. It is sponsored by private and public entities and the EPA.

Although America may not enjoy much of a reputation for environmentalism on the global stage, in some US cities, recycling levels are much higher than, for example, in the UK.