NRC Recycling Economic Survey Completed

According to the report, there are more than 56,000 recycling and reuse companies in the United States. This sector employs around 1.1 million people, and generates an annual payroll of $37 billion.

Broken out by individual sectors, the collection infrastructure has around 9,200 companies; the processing industry covers 12,000 companies; recycling manufacturing totals 8,047 companies; and the reuse and remanufacturing sector covers more than 26,000 companies.

According to the report, there is a significant difference between the recycling sectors (collection, processing and manufacturing: and the reuse sector in terms of both size of establishments and average annual payroll.

Recycling companies have, on average, 33 employees. Alternatively, the reuse sector averages 6 employees per establishment.

The difference in average employees per establishment between recycling and reuse sectors can come from several sources, although two are most likely: whether continuous production process are employed; and whether economies of scale produce improved production efficiency. Continuous production processes are normally employed to save energy, avoid production startup/shutdown inefficiencies, or cover high monthly fixed costs.

The manufacturing segment also is highly fragmented. Paper, board and deinked market pulp mill employ 140,000 people and gross close to $49 billion. Steel mills employ 120,000 people and gross $46 billion annual. Meanwhile, plastics converts employ 180,000 people and gross close to $28 billion.

Finally, iron and steel foundries employ 126,000 people and gross more than $16 billion annual.

The above four categories account for 50 percent of all employees, as well as 62 percent of wages and 59 percent of total receipts.

The goal of the Beck study was to document the size of the recycling and reuse industry by first determining the direct economic information for each of the 26 categories of recycling reuse establishments.

Next, similar information was estimated for four categories of supporting establishments intimately involved in the recycling and reuse industry.

Finally, the broader effect of recycling and reuse businesses and their employees on the economy was derived through economic modeling using direct data as inputs.

This information included:

Indirect economic values; induced economic values; multipliers to calculate total economic values; and tax revenues attributable to the recycling and reuse industry.

A copy of the executive summary of the complete report may be obtained by going to www.nrc-recycle.org.