U.S. Plastic Recycling Economy

Credit: NIST AMS 100-64

As discussed in NIST AMS 100-64, plastic is often thought of as unnatural; however, polymers are abundant in nature (Freinke 2011). In fact, a material called cellulose or celluloid made from cotton, developed in 1863 by a journeyman named John Wesley Hyatt, was the first plastic. In the last 50 years, the adoption and use of plastics has increased significantly worldwide with polymer production nearing 400 million tons in 2020 (Geyer et al. 2017; Ritchie and Roser 2018). With mass production comes a massive amount of waste. Plastic waste was 12.2 % of municipal solid waste in the U.S. in 2018, which is the third largest category behind paper/paperboard and food (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2021). 

This report discusses the current state of plastics recycling, manufacturing, usage, and waste handling in the United States. It discusses and compares state level recycling programs along with national recycling programs in other countries, particularly those with high plastic recycling rates. The report also examines the potential for chemical recycling to address the plastics recycling problem. Finally, it identifies and discusses the stakeholders in the plastic recycling economy, including their incentives, barriers, and challenges to increasing recycling or recycled content use. Some highlights are provided below.

U.S. plastic recycling activity

• In 2018, 8.7 % of plastics were recycled in the U.S., 15.8 % incinerated with energy recovery, and 75.6 % sent to landfill (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2021).
• Plastic is recycled largely using mechanical means.
• Contamination in the waste plastic, such as mixed plastics, food, and other debris, presents challenges for all plastic recycling.
• Packaging is the largest use of plastics with 44.8 % of plastic being used for this purpose, as seen in Table 2.1 of AMS 100-64. The second largest use is for buildings and construction (18.8 %), as seen in the same table, followed by other uses (13.2 %) and consumer/institutional products (11.9 %).

Plastic Recycling Economy Stakeholders Challenges and Incentives

• End Users (e.g., consumers)
  • End users have limited information on the recyclability or recycled content of a given plastic product. Increasing information/knowledge can result in incentivizing circular plastics.
    • End user willingness-to-pay (WTP) for recyclable materials could potentially impact the number/types of plastics produced along with the additives, which has been identified as a major challenge for the success of plastics recycling.
    • End user WTP for products with recycled content can create an incentive for producers to use recyclable materials to make new products. 
  • Some end users have limited access to plastics recycling programs and/or have limited knowledge regarding what is recyclable. 
• Plastic Waste Collectors and Sorters
  • Costs often exceed revenue for plastic waste collection and sorting.

• 64 % of material recycling facilities are privately owned (National Waste and Recycling Association 2018); thus, making a profit is critical for the survival of these facilities. 
• Resin (from plastic waste) Manufacturers
  • Producers of recycled plastic material potentially compete with primary materials, which are affected by the price of inputs such as oil and/or natural gas. 
  • Data suggests that producing plastic material from recycled waste tends to be less profitable than using primary material and is less profitable than the average manufacturing establishment. 
• Plastic Product Manufacturers
  • Contamination can prevent recycled plastic from being used for some applications.
  • Producing plastics from recycled material is often more expensive than using primary material and introduces supply risks. 
• Communities and Society
  • Communities tend to bear the effects of plastic pollution and the results of consuming diminishing resources such as the materials for making plastic.

Programs with high rates of recycling/collection

• Recycling rates vary significantly from country to country, state to state, and even within a state.
• U.S. States with bottle deposit return systems tend to have higher recycling rates, as seen in Table 4.1 of NIST AMS 100-64. States with higher recycling collection rates tend to have bottle deposit laws.
• States with higher recycling rates tend to have recycling collection legislation that reward recycling collection, require/enforce recycling collection, and/or ban certain types of plastic (Table 4.1 from NIST AMS 100-64).
• Successful recycling tends to happen when it is financially viable, technically feasible, and environmentally beneficial. Currently, this includes homogeneous high-value, pure (i.e., low-contamination) streams with many being affected by the price of oil (Merrington 2017).
  • Due to the many types of plastic and the additives, there are many small streams, which reduces economies of scale (Chen 2021).
  • Unfortunately, only a limited number of plastics present a “value generating” or profitable opportunity. For instance, Gao (2020) identified that approximately 20 % of plastic collection efforts met a threshold 15 % return on investment or higher for recycling . Another 50 % had positive returns but did not meet the 15 % threshold. The last 30 % had negative returns.
• Countries with higher recycling rates tend to have recycling legislation that reward recycling, require/enforce recycling, connect the costs/responsibilities of recycling to manufacturers (often referred to as extended producer responsibility), and/or ban certain plastic products.
  • Bottle deposit systems in the U.S., which tend to be associated with higher levels of recycling, might in some instances be considered a narrow example of extended producer responsibility.
  • Further investigation is needed to understand the different designs for existing extended producer responsibility programs and additional research is needed to understand the effects of these designs.

For more information and citation information, please see NIST AMS 100-64:

Credit: NIST AMS 100-64