The U.S. EPA shared updated recycling infrastructure data earlier this month during the waning days of the Biden administration. This included a report with financial estimates for modernizing material recovery infrastructure, as well as insights from states in a recycling needs survey and assessment.
The two reports stem from an appropriations bill, passed in late 2019, that called on the EPA to develop estimates for what it would take “to provide all citizens with access to recycling services on par with access to disposal.”
These were some of the key packaging-related data points in EPA’s publications:
96 million tons
The amount of packaging material waste generated in the United States per year.
39%
The estimated recycling rate for packaging materials. EPA projects that expanding recycling access and infrastructure could result in recycling an additional 38 million to 45 million tons of packaging material.
EPA also shared recycling data by packaging or material type, based on applying estimates from Ball’s 2021 “50 States of Recycling” report to 2019 state-level population data.
| Packaging material | Generation (tons) | Recycling (tons) | Potentially recyclable material (tons) | Recycling rate |
| PET bottles | 3.3 million | 764,000 | 2.5 million | 23% |
| PET rigids | 766,000 | 45,000 | 721,000 | 6% |
| HDPE bottles | 2.2 million | 499,000 | 1.7 million | 23% |
| Aluminum | 1.5 million | 553,000 | 950,000 | 37% |
| Steel | 1.8 million | 562,000 | 1.2 million | 31% |
| Cardboard | 34.2 million | 18.3 million | 15.9 million | 54% |
| Paper | 42.3 million | 12.5 million | 29.8 million | 30% |
| Glass | 9.9 million | 4.1 million | 5.8 million | 41% |
$22 billion to $28 billion
The investment into collection, drop-off and processing infrastructure that EPA projects would be needed to recycle the 38 million to 45 million tons of currently potentially recyclable packaging material, including glass bottles, metal cans, paper and cardboard, and plastics Nos. 1 and 2.
45-47%
The national recycling rate that the U.S. could potentially achieve with the above investment. The EPA has a nationwide goal to reach 50%.
5,863
Total number of facilities in the U.S. that recover packaging material waste. Among this list are 421 MRFs that process multiple types of packaging material, 83 glass recycling and beneficiation facilities, 5,099 facilities that process either aluminum or steel, 57 that recycle paper and 203 that recycle plastics.
~40%
The portion of households that lack access to recycling services for packaging materials that are equivalent in quality to trash disposal services.
$3 billion
The cost to implement a glass separation program for urban single-family and multifamily households across the U.S., EPA estimates. EPA noted that rural areas tend to already have glass separation programs at drop-off sites.
80%
The portion of U.S. states and territories that do not have deposit programs. Of those that do have such programs, two-thirds gather data on the amount of residential packaging materials collected through the programs.
12%
The portion of states and territories that collect data on the type of single-use plastics “currently in commerce.”
