San Francisco, Nov. 23, 2021 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the 2021 National Recycling Strategy to tackle recycling challenges facing the nation and to create a stronger, more resilient, and cost-effective municipal solid waste recycling system. This year, California alone has invested $270 million in new recycling infrastructure and programs. The 2021 strategy is also the first time EPA’s recycling approach will address the climate impacts of producing, using, and disposing of materials. The strategy also includes a focus on the human health and environmental impacts of waste and waste-related facilities in overburdened communities, reflecting the Agency’s commitment to delivering environmental justice.
“Our nation’s recycling system is in need of critical
improvements to better serve the American people. EPA’s National Recycling
Strategy provides a roadmap to address system challenges and pave the way for
the future of recycling,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “As
we move forward with this strategy, EPA is committed to ensuring that
historically underserved and overburdened communities share in the benefits
that our work will deliver. Together with the historic investments in recycling
from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the strategy will help transform
recycling and solid waste management across the country while creating jobs and
strengthening our economy.”
During the next few months, EPA will work collaboratively
with stakeholders to develop a plan to implement the 2021 Strategy. EPA will
collaborate with communities, local, state, federal and Tribal partners, and
with public and private stakeholders to achieve the strategy’s ambitious goals.
EPA looks forward to supporting state and local agencies who are on the ground
solving these issues.
This year California has taken major strides to make sure
materials get recycled by building remanufacturing in their state, including:
- Passing seven new recycling laws EXITsuch
as standards for recycling labels and exports, new bottle and can
recycling options and single use food utensil restrictions,
- Investing
$270 million in new recycling infrastructure and programs, and
- Launching
statewide food and yard waste recycling into new green products starting
January 1, 2022.
“California’s innovative policies and climate investments in
reuse, recycling and recycling market development are unparalleled,” said
EPA Pacific Southwest Acting Regional Administrator Deborah Jordan. “We
look forward to working closely with the state to implement EPA’s National
Recycling Strategy and support overburdened communities.”
“Solving problems through innovation is what California does
best, and we are upgrading our recycling approach by investing in
remanufacturing,” California Resources Recycling and Recovery Director
Rachel Machi Wagoner said. “The state is supporting industry in
designing waste out of the manufacturing process and using materials from local
curbside bins to make new products right here within our state.”
The U.S. recycling system faces many challenges, including
reduced markets for recycled materials, recycling infrastructure that has not
kept pace with today’s diverse and changing waste stream, confusion about what
materials can be recycled, and varying methodologies to measure recycling
system performance. The 2021 National Recycling Strategy identifies actions to
address these challenges that build on the collaborative efforts by
stakeholders from across the recycling system that began under the 2019
National Framework for Advancing the U.S. Recycling System.
The Strategy focuses on how the Agency will move forward in
the following areas:
- Increasing
Equitable Access for Overburdened Communities: EPA recognizes the burden
that living near waste and waste-related facilities has on communities
when waste is not properly managed, which can lead to higher levels of
chronic health issues. The 2021 Strategy will increase equitable access to
recycling services, reduce environmental impacts in communities, stimulate
economic development, and ensure overburdened communities meaningfully
participate during the strategy’s implementation.
- Reducing
Climate Impacts of Materials Management: The 2021 Strategy includes a
commitment by EPA to create a new national goal to reduce the climate
impacts from the production, consumption, use, and disposal of materials,
which make up approximately 50 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions,
according to the United Nations Environment Programme’ s International
Resource Panel. This new climate goal will help achieve President Biden’s
commitment to achieve a 50-52-percent reduction from 2005 levels in economy-wide
net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
- Managing
Materials for a Circular Economy: While this initial 2021 Strategy focuses
on the recycling of municipal solid waste, additional work is necessary to
create a “circular economy” where materials (e.g., plastics, food waste,
electronics, and industrial materials) are sustainably managed throughout
their lifecycle. EPA, in coordination with other federal agencies and
interested stakeholders, intends to release subsequent strategies that
will encompass other activities beyond the recycling, reflecting the need
for sustainable product design, reducing waste generation, and materials
reuse activities critical to realizing circularity. Subsequent strategies
will address other key materials, such as plastics, food, cement and
concrete, as well as electronics.
Additional Background:
Over the next few years, EPA will move forward to support a
circular economy approach to materials management, which represents an
important change in how the nation currently mines resources, makes them into
products, and then disposes of them. A circular economy approach reduces
material use, redesigns materials and products to be less resource intensive,
and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.
It is defined by the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act as “a systems-focused approach and
involves industrial processes and economic activities that are restorative or
regenerative to the environment by design, enable resources used in such
processes and activities to maintain their highest values for as long as
possible, and aim for the elimination of waste through superior design of
materials, products and systems (including business models).
Learn more about the National Recycling Strategy:
Part One of a Series on Building a Circular Economy for All: https://www.epa.gov/recyclingstrategy
Learn how to improve the nation’s recycling rate: https://www.epa.gov/recyclingstrategy/national-recycling-strategy-part-one-series-building-circular-economy-join-effort
Learn more about recycling in the
United States: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling
Learn how California is building a circular economy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5WgxJrYE6zE&feature=youtu.be
Learn more about EPA’s Pacific SouthwestRegion. Connect with us on Facebook and
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Media Contact:
Soledad Calvino
Email: calvino.maria@epa.gov
Phone: 415-972-3512
