Legislative Update – February 2022

As funding for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is released, Congress and the Biden administration are focused on how to implement the Act’s programs and provisions. One area that is taking shape quickly is recycling. On Feb. 2, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on “Legislative Proposals to Improve Domestic Recycling and Composting Programs.” Chairman Tom Carper (D- DE) and Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), along with Sen. John Boozeman, Co-Chair of the Senate Caucus on Recycling, used the hearing to unveil two new bipartisan draft bills that would establish new recycling grant programs as mandated by the infrastructure bill passed last year. Senators Carper and Capito have been collaborating since the fall, hosting roundtables, and asking stakeholders for feedback on the proposals.

The measures call for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to collect data on recycling and composting and establish a new grant to increase access to recycling programs in underserved communities. The IIJA provides $55 million for the EPA recycling grant program. The draft bills also come shortly after the release last year of the EPA National Recycling Strategy, which aims to improve and build policies and programs to support a circular economy. The National Strategy requires the U.S. to expand markets for recycled materials, increase collection and improve materials management infrastructure, reduce contamination in the recycling stream, create standardized measurement and increase data collection through recycling definitions, measures, targets and performance indicators.

The draft bills already have industry support and were well received by the panel’s witnesses, whose markets and expertise focused primarily on composting, food waste, paper and fiber. While there was discussion about how to ensure circular economies in recycling, plastics were barely mentioned. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) predictably spoke about plastics recycling. Instead of asking questions, he shared his frustration with the “disastrous state” of plastics recycling and the stalled plastics legislation he has been working on. “I think we have a real failure happening in the plastics recycling market,” he said. Whitehouse complained that despite “immense” public pressure on the plastics industry and manufacturing companies, cheaper costs of virgin plastic continues to prevail and corporations continue to manufacture” plastic instead of buying more recycled plastic. Senator Dan Sullivan (R- AZ) expressed similar sentiments and asked the witnesses to suggest how this public pressure could be translated into a bipartisan solution. The witnesses struggled to respond, with most noting that they were unfamiliar with the plastics industry and its markets.

Carper’s Recycling and Composting Accountability Act focuses on recycling and composting, as well as provides for a range of reporting and data collection activities, including:

• Requires the EPA to report on the U.S.’s capability to implement a national residential composting strategy for compostable materials to reduce contamination rates in residential recycling. This includes analyzing current U.S. laws that create barriers to implementing a national program and evaluating already established composting programs in the U.S.
• Conducts a study of manufacturers’ conversion to compostable packaging and food service ware.
• Directs the U.S. Comptroller General to consult with EPA and report on the annual recycling and composting rates of all federal agencies and the total percentage of products containing recyclable material, compostable material, or recovered materials bought by federal agencies.
• Requires EPA to conduct an inventory of materials recovery facilities (MRFs) in the country and describe the materials processed by MRFs.
• Creates a comprehensive database on recycling systems: identify the number of curbside recycling and composting programs and drop-off programs that exist in the U.S., and the types of materials accepted, and collect data on the number of people who have access to such services and those who have barriers to such services. Inbound contamination and capture rates would also be determined by EPA.
• Requires EPA to collect from states a standardized rate of recyclable materials and report on end markets, in addition to the information EPA is already required to collect under the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, which requires reporting on plastics recycling.
• EPA must develop a metric to calculate the diversion of recyclable materials from the circular market and calls on EPA to offer best practices to states, local governments, and tribes to improve recycling and composting.

Senator Capito provided an overview of West Virginia’s abysmal recycling rates while describing the unique challenges rural areas have in obtaining needed recycling data to address these problems.
Her legislation, the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act would:

• Create a pilot program at EPA to improve recycling services in underserved areas.
• Establishes a pilot program to award competitive grants to improve recycling accessibility in one or more communities within a geographic region. The goal is to improve recycling systems by investing in infrastructure in underserved communities through a “hub-and-spoke” model for recycling infrastructure development.
• Funds can be used to increase the number of transfer stations, expand curbside recycling collection programs, and leverage public-private partnerships to reduce the costs associated with collecting and transporting recyclable materials in underserved communities.

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A Department of Commerce advisory panel is urging the Biden administration to support ratification of the Basel Convention to better monitor trade in plastics, electronics, and other wastes governed by the agreement. The Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee (ETTAC) sent a recommendation to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Jan. 19 urging her to encourage the administration to join the agreement, among other recommendations the committee says will help promote U.S. competitiveness in green tech.

The U.S. signed the agreement in 1990, but it has never been ratified or implemented because the U.S. “does not have sufficient domestic statutory authority to implement all of its provisions,” according to the State Department. That same year, countries that were parties to the Convention adopted an amendment to restrict shipments of recyclable plastics from wealthier countries to Third World countries, prompted by concerns about plastic pollution in the oceans. The measure subjects plastic mixtures to the agreement’s “Prior Informed Consent” process and other restrictions. Although the U.S. does not export large quantities of hazardous waste to other countries, it does trade in recyclable materials that are often referred to as “waste.” The Committee notes that EPA has authority under the U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to control transboundary movements of most hazardous recyclables and wastes, but not all Basel Convention-controlled wastes under the amended Convention.

ETTAC notes that recyclable materials are key to a circular economy and recommends that the U.S. join the Basel Convention so that it has a seat at the table and can participate as a “full party” to the Convention.

 

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A large coalition of more than 100 industry, government and citizen groups is vowing to eliminate industrial use of a number of plastic products and the chemicals used in their manufacturing. The Plastics Pact Jan. 25 released its list of “problematic and unnecessary” materials on including chemical ingredients and many single-use plastic items such as stirrers, straws and cutlery. The Pact, which opposes chemical recycling and claims it is a “dangerous and unproven technology that converts plastic waste into emissions,” says it will “develop guidance on circular alternatives to eliminate the items on the list by 2025.”

Vinyl Institute President and CEO Ned Monroe immediately responded to the dangers of imposing misinformed restrictions on plastics and PVC.  “The US Plastics Pact list could pose a risk to the public by eliminating certain types of packaging. PVC packaging protects people’s food and medicine. Their list could lead legislators and regulators to deprive the public of life enhancing applications. Implementing arbitrary restrictions on PVC packaging will not improve the recycling rate of other plastics because there is so little PVC in the curbside collection stream. We are proud that in the U.S. and Canada the PVC industry recycles more than 1.1 billion pounds of vinyl materials annually which includes 142 million pounds of post-consumer vinyl materials.”