Study: Recycling is Economically Feasible Through Targeting High-Value Recyclables

As market forces negatively influence recycling rates in communities across the United States, municipalities look to reduce the number of materials collected or even eliminate programs.

A new study from the Florida Recycling Partnership Foundation examined the impact of higher contamination rates, higher processing costs, lower participation rates, and fluctuating commodity values on curbside recycling. 

"Numerous changes can be made to a local government’s recycling program, including changes to the collection frequency, introduction of larger capacity recycling bins, education to promote recycling participation, limiting the types of materials accepted, and even eliminating the program," researchers wrote.

A team of University of Florida researchers led by Dr. Timothy G. Townsend, worked to quantify the impact of commodity market values and contamination within recycling systems. Another outcome was to generate data regarding the impact of GHG emissions and compare the costs of eliminating programs or changing the types of materials collected.

Researchers first look at state mass composition and disposition data for 2011, 2015 and 2020. Over the past decade, the single-family residential recycling rate in Florida has consistently remained around 30 percent, with about 53 percent to 58 percent of that waste going to landfill. Paper products in particular contributed to 20 percent of the total recycling rate.

Furthermore, the study from that the total annual household waste management cost rose to $230 per household (HH)/year in 2020, up from $188 in 2015 and $167 in 2011. As communities cut recycling programs, the impact is greater to the environment.

"When evaluating the impact of eliminating recycling, we find that there are certain market conditions, recycling stream compositions, and recycling rates which result in only a $1/HH-yr saved but with a tremendous increase in GHG emissions," the study's authors wrote. "The removal of historically low commodities, like glass (considered a contaminant in some parts of Florida), result in a slight increase in costs and in GHG emissions."

The solution was not to completely cut curbside recycling programs, but rather to optimize systems for gathering materials with historical high commodity prices.

"Such a program will require local governments to educate residents on proper recycling guidelines, and in doing so 2 can help capture materials, like plastics, which are becoming more in demand due to new policies and corporate changes requiring the use of recycled content in product manufacture," they noted.

While curbside recycling results in a net cost to both municipalities and residents, this comprises only 16 percent to 26 percent of overall waste management system costs. A more optimized program targeting newspaper, cardboard, aluminum and steel cans, HDPE and PET bottles can both lower overall costs and reduce GHG emissions. However, the most efficient way to control costs remains in contamination reduction.

"With increasing demand for recycled materials, the importance of the impact of these scenarios on potential recovered material quantities become elevated," the study's authors indicated.

Minimum post-consumer recycled content legislation has recycling rates in states such as Oregon, Maine and New Jersey. With multiple states introducing and passing minimum content regulations, demand is increasing for recycled plastic on a national level as manufacturers shift production processes to meet requirements.

"Based on conversations with recycling operators these minimum content regulations are positively impacting the plastics commodity markets in 2021 and 2022 and are expected to continue as the demand for recycled plastic currently outpaces supply," researchers said.

They further noted: "In Florida, for example, the 2021 consumption of plastic PET liquid refreshment bottles (LRB) products was 0.01 tons/person (data collected from communications with Florida Beverage Association) thus 220,000 tons of LRB PET were consumed in Florida. If 15 percent of all produced PET needs to come from post-consumer PET, it can be expected that the current LRB PET collected from households (157,989 tons) and recycled mass (for 2020 assumed to have a high recycling rate of 50%) can supply 100 percent of the total post-consumer demand."