NRC Congress & Expo: U.S. Recycling Rate Reaches 32 Percent

America’s recycling rate saw a slight gain in 2005, moving from 31.4 percent in 2004 to 32.1 percent, according to statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson shared these figures from the EPA’s “Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2005 Facts and Figures” executive summary with attendees of the National Recycling Coalition’s 25^th Annual Congress & Expo during the opening plenary session Monday, Oct. 23.

Jonson said the EPA wants to increase the national recycling rate, as well as consumer enthusiasm about recycling. “We need to restart the nation’s recycling engine,” he told attendees, adding that younger citizens are not as motivated to recycle as those who came of age during recycling’s heyday in the early 1990s.

According to EPA figures, the United States generated approximately 245.7 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2005, a decrease of 1.6 million tons from 2004. The recovery rate for recycling, which includes composting, increased from 31.4 percent in 2004 to 32.1 percent in 2005. In 2005, 54 percent of MSW was sent to landfill, a marked decline from 1980, when 89 percent of the MSW generated in the United States was landfilled, according to the EPA.

Johnson told attendees that nearly 40 percent of containers and packaging material was recycled in 2005. According to the EPA’s executive summary, the recycling rates by packaging category for 2005 were:

• Aluminum cans, 45 percent;
• All aluminum packaging, including aluminum foil, 36.3 percent; 
• Steel, 63.3 percent ;
• Glass, 25 percent;
• Plastic containers, 9 percent;
• Wood (mostly pallets), 15 percent; and
• Paper and paperboard containers, most of which were corrugated containers, 58.8 percent.

Johnson said that the waste characterization report reveals good news for the recycling industry in that the re-branding effort the NRC has announced in partnership with the EPA, the American Beverage Association/Food Products Association and the International Bottled Water Association, has “good base” on which to build.

What’s good for the environment is good for industry’s bottom line, Johnson added, as many companies are looking for ways to increase their profitability through reuse and recycling.

“We are turning a throw-away culture into a recycling culture,” Johnson said. “By encouraging smart use of resources, we can hand down a more sustainable planet to future generations.”

The NRC’s 25^th Annual Congress & Expo was Oct. 22-25 at the Atlanta World Congress Center.