Two industry association officials spoke before Congress to push for recycling.

John Skinner, executive director of the Silver Spring, Md.-based Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), told the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Environment and Economy that the draft legislation, the Increasing Manufacturing Competitiveness Through Improved Recycling Act of 2012, is backed by the association. SWANA agrees that the manufacturing sector can increase its competitiveness, reduce its energy costs and emission levels and improve landfill diversion through an increase in the use of recyclable materials in its production processes.

 The proposed legislation calls for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), working with the Departments of Energy and Commerce, to conduct surveys and develop a report on the amounts of various materials actually diverted by various collection systems, recycled by manufacturers, as well as the amounts landfilled.

Skinner said that the report would provide detailed and useful information but he questioned the time frame suggested for the task, according to a SWANA news release.

Also testifying before the committee on the proposed legislation wasLynn Bragg, president of the Washington-based Glass Packaging Institute (GPI).

“All glass containers are 100 percent and endlessly recyclable,” Bragg said in a GPI news release. “A top priority for GPI and its members is to divert and recycle glass containers currently in the municipal solid waste stream rather than commit those valuable materials to perpetual, wasteful loss in landfills.”