Phoenix-based recycling and waste company Republic Services Inc. has issued a report describing its plastic collection and recycling activities. It also highlights the actions required to increase plastics recycling at the national level. The report was produced following the filing of a shareholder proposal by As You Sow.
Waste Management, Houston, produced a similar report earlier this year, also at the request of As You Sow, Berkeley, California.
“This report provides some initial insight into ways to expand recycling and improve plastics end markets,” Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president of As You Sow, says. “But overall, it missed an opportunity to provide a detailed discussion on the kinds of factors that would induce it to invest more in plastics recycling and examples of successful business models to boost development of end markets. This is disappointing, given that it acknowledges it collects some plastics for which there are limited or no end markets.”
Republic Services’ report states that recycled content standards for plastics are imperative to creating durable end markets. The company says it supports minimum recycled content legislation, such as California’s recently passed AB 793, which mandates 50 percent postconsumer content by 2030. The company adds that it supports the tiered implementation of recycled content standards, as is the case in California’s law. Such mandates could help to increase bale prices and expand end markets, the company says.
“Without mandated recycled content in packaging, recovered materials need to compete with inexpensive virgin plastics, primarily produced from natural gas,” the report notes.
Republic says it processes roughly 6 million tons of recyclables annually, making it one of the largest processors of recovered residential and commercial recyclables in the world. The company says it seeks to process all the recyclables it collects, but adds that as much as 12 percent of the plastics collected (Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7) “have limited or no end markets” and could be landfilled.
Republic says it has invested nearly $63 million in the last four years in projects designed to improve the recovery of plastics and other recyclables in 26 of its material recovery facilities.
The company says only 59 percent of U.S. households have direct access to recycling collection programs, adding that to increase recycling more consumers must be able and willing to participate.
Republic Services states that it eliminated the export of plastics to all overseas markets in 2019 and gives qualified support to extended producer responsibility systems to finance recycling improvements.