USA profile
Glass Recycling Developments in the United States GPI President, Scott DeFife* highlights some of the changes in recycling policy in the United States in 2021 and states even more positive progress is likely this year.
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hile 2021 was an active year for recycling policy in the United States, 2022 promises even more change, with a potential for positive opportunities to improve and increase glass recycling. GPI released a roadmap-centered report earlier this year, the Circular Future for Glass, detailing ways to reach its industry goal of 50% recycling for glass, a goal shared nationally as per the US Environmental Protection Agency’s 2021 announcement of a 50% recycling rate in the next decade. For background there are key differences and deficiencies in the U.S. recycling system, many in sharp contrast to the EU, UK and surrounding regions. Recently, Close the Glass Loop published new data showing collection rates for glass recycling hitting 78% across Europe. Data for the US is considerably less reliable due to the prevalence of comingled single-stream, but the closest equivalent we can compare is roughly 40% for glass recovery. While this rate is higher for beverage container glass covered within deposits systems across 10 states, the average recycling rate percentage for glass in the US has hovered in the low 30s for some time. Glass recycling rates for the container deposit states average in the mid-60% range, with the remaining states in the low 20%s, and several of those having glass recycling rates in the teens or even single digits. A critical difference is the prevalence of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes in Europe, a key feature of the current policy debate that will expand here in 2022. Comingled curbside recycling has a very small
footprint throughout European systems, with most countries separating glass and other food and beverage packaging from fibre and other recyclable materials at the point of collection. There are (virtually) no bottle banks in the United States, a dominant recycling programme feature across the EU. In many medium to larger metro areas of Europe there are hundreds of bottle banks, surface and underground systems to make collection convenient. While a handful of US communities operate source-separated glass recycling at the curb, and some have successfully retained dual-stream recycling (where some combination of glass and rigid containers are collected separately from fibre and paper), the vast majority of residential recycling involve no recyclable separation, using only single bin collection and compaction. The material recovery facilities tasked with sorting and selling these recyclables have a wide range of capabilities, with few held to any quality metric or performance standards. Many are also owned by the same companies that own the nearby landfill, which can be an economic conflict of interest that impacts the recycling of glass. This is where the EPR debate enters. This past year two US states, Oregon and Maine, enacted new packaging EPR laws. Located on opposite coasts and which take slightly different approaches, but both already among the 10 states with container deposit programmes in place. Products and materials covered by deposit programmes were exempted in both states, so the remaining glass products sold in the marketplace have some options to consider over the next few years, as the regulatory process unfolds in both
24 Glass International December/January 2022
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14/01/2022 11:26:47
