Title DEEP DIVE: Environmental Leaders, Lawmakers Leverage Partnerships to Boost Recycling Capacity

(Editor’s Note: 3E is expanding news coverage to provide customers with insights into topics that enable a safer, more sustainable world by protecting people, safeguarding products, and helping businesses grow. Deep Dive articles, produced by reporters, feature interviews with subject matter experts and influencers as well as exclusive analysis provided by 3E researchers and consultants).

Experts and a bipartisan group of lawmakers agree — recycling will have a more significant impact if collection and processing infrastructure is improved and communities are empowered by public-private partnerships to invest in programs that transform waste into reusable products that contribute to a more circular economy through extended producer responsibility (EPR).

As of 2018, the most recent year recorded in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) database on recycling and waste management, just 32% of the 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste generated that year was composted, equivalent to 94 million tons.