Recycling Policy ·
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Recycling is a critical part of America’s manufacturing infrastructure.
Every day, recycling facilities like those run by AMBR’s founding members collect and sort paper, plastics, metals, glass, and other materials that are sold as raw materials to manufacturers. This keeps valuable resources in our domestic economy, supports American jobs and manufacturing, and reduces our dependence on imported and virgin materials.
The United States has an opportunity to strengthen a much-needed domestic supply chain. We can invest in recycling infrastructure across the country, capture more valuable materials here at home, and build stronger markets for those materials in American manufacturing.
But two bills moving through Congress could weaken that supply chain while increasing the cost of recycling for local governments and the communities they serve. On Tuesday, September 1, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade is scheduled to consider the Packaging and Claims Knowledge Act, or PACK Act, and the Recycled Materials Attribution Act, or RMAA.
The RMAA Could Weaken Markets for American Recycled Materials
Strong recycled-content policies create demand for recycled materials. When manufacturers buy those materials to make new products, they support an entire domestic supply chain, from the local programs that collect recyclables to the facilities that sort and process them and the manufacturers that put those materials back to use.
The RMAA risks weakening that chain. If companies can meet recycled-content goals through accounting instead of increasing their use of recycled materials, those goals do less to build markets for recycled materials.
At a time when the United States should be strengthening domestic manufacturing and supply chains, federal policy should encourage manufacturers to buy and use more recycled materials produced by American recycling facilities.
The PACK Act threatens the other end of the recycling system. Recycling works best when the products entering it are actually designed to be recycled. A package should be called recyclable when it can be collected, sorted, and processed at scale, and sold to manufacturers as a usable raw material.
The PACK Act Could Increase the Cost of Recycling
When packaging labeled recyclable comes into a recycling facility but cannot actually be recycled, someone still has to pay to manage it. Difficult-to-recycle packaging increases contamination and operating costs, reduces the quality and value of recycled materials, and ultimately increases costs for local recycling programs and the communities they serve.
Strong recyclability standards give producers an incentive to design packaging that actually works in the recycling system. The PACK Act risks lowering that bar while overriding stronger state standards that are already driving improvements in recycling infrastructure and markets.
Congress Should Strengthen This Domestic Supply Chain
As the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee considers these bills on Tuesday, members should ask a straightforward question: Will these policies strengthen American manufacturing and domestic supply chains, lower costs for communities and consumers, and make our economy more competitive?
The PACK Act and Recycled Materials Attribution Act fail that test. Congress should reject them and instead invest in the recycling infrastructure and markets needed to build a stronger American manufacturing economy.