Forty thousand miles of plastic waste wash through the global ocean every year, enough to wrap the Earth at the equator. But walk into the right store, and you can personally shorten that pipeline by a few feet, returning a pair of worn sneakers, a dead laptop, or a piece of furniture destined for the dumpster.

Some retailers have built genuine end-of-life infrastructure for the products they sell — not just a PR line, but real systems with documented results. The seven below have the numbers to back it up, updated for 2026.

Patagonia

Patagonia’s Worn Wear program remains one of the most comprehensive take-back systems in retail apparel. In 2025, customers made more than 137,000 trade-ins — almost 71,000 of them from return and warranty claims — and the online Shop Used feature launched in September 2024 has expanded the secondhand market significantly. Items deemed wearable are cleaned, repaired, and resold through Worn Wear; those beyond repair enter a recycling pipeline.

On the material innovation side, Patagonia partnered with Eastman in 2024 to process 8,000 pounds of pre- and post-consumer clothing waste through molecular recycling — breaking apparel down to chemical building blocks for reuse as new fiber. The brand has also moved aggressively on materials: by fall 2025, over 90 percent of Patagonia’s fabrics were recycled, organic, or traceable. Its 2025 Work in Progress Report disclosed that reducing hang tags by over 40 million pieces has avoided 170,000 pounds of packaging waste. The structural challenge — mechanically recycling blended fabrics — remains unsolved at industrial scale, and Patagonia acknowledges it openly.

Apple

Apple’s trade-in and recycling program sent 15.9 million devices to new owners through refurbishment schemes in 2024 alone. Devices that cannot be refurbished are processed by Daisy, Apple’s disassembly robot, which can now break down 36 models of iPhone into discrete components to recover aluminum, copper, rare earth elements, and other materials. A second robot, Dave, disassembles Taptic Engines to recover rare earth magnets, tungsten, and steel.

The material-recovery numbers are striking. In 2024, 24 percent of all materials shipped in Apple products came from recycled or renewable sources, up from 10 percent in 2019. Recycled aluminum accounted for 71 percent of the aluminum Apple purchased. The company avoided 6.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by using recycled and low-carbon materials in 2024, according to its 2025 Environmental Progress Report. Apple has also surpassed 99 percent on its 2025 goal to use 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets and 100 percent recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries. Customers can drop devices off at any Apple Store or ship for free.

Best Buy

Best Buy has collected 2.7 billion pounds of electronics and appliances since launching its recycling program in 2009, making it the nation’s largest retail collector of e-waste. The program accepts most consumer electronics at more than 1,000 stores regardless of where items were purchased, collecting more than 400 pounds of product every minute stores are open.

The program has expanded: a mail-in recycling service now lets customers without easy store access ship old tech in purpose-built boxes. A home haul-away service launched for customers who cannot transport large items. Best Buy requires all recycling partners to comply with rigorous environmental management standards and holds them to regulatory compliance and responsible workforce practices. TVs and monitors carry a $25 fee; most other electronics — phones, laptops, tablets, cables — are accepted free.

Nike

Nike’s original Reuse-a-Shoe program launched in 1995 to recycle worn athletic footwear into Nike Grind material for surfaces and new products has evolved into the Recycling + Donation (RAD) service, now available globally.

The program accepts athletic footwear and apparel from any brand and inspects each item to determine donation or recycling eligibility. Wearable items go to nonprofit partners including Soles4Souls for redistribution to communities in need; worn-out footwear is ground down into Nike Grind, which goes into playground surfaces, running tracks, and new Nike products.

Part of Nike’s Move to Zero initiative, targeting zero carbon and zero waste across the supply chain, the  Participating stores accept shoes of any brand — athletic footwear only; no cleats, boots, or sandals. Nike also runs Nike Refurbished, which cleans and resells gently worn or slightly imperfect footwear and apparel at select factory and community stores, extending product life before material recovery.

Staples

Staples pioneered national retail recycling in 2007 as the first U.S. retailer to offer a universal e-waste takeback program. Today the program accepts over 50 types of materials including computers, printers, phones, cables, batteries, crayons, and coffee machines from any brand. Since 2021, Staples has recycled 7,000 tons of e-waste and 19 million ink and toner cartridges, helping HP reach a milestone of 1 billion cartridges recycled.

Staples’ Easy Rewards program currently gives members 500 points (equivalent to $5 back) per month for tech recycling. Ink and toner cartridge recycling earns $2 per cartridge for members spending at least $30 on ink over the previous 180 days, up to a monthly limit. Staples uses certified recyclers whenever possible, and recycled toner material gets routed into road construction aggregate. The company accepts electronics in-store at customer service desks at all U.S. Staples locations.

IKEA

Furniture is the United States’ largest category of discarded household goods, with Americans throwing away approximately 12 million tons of it each year. IKEA’s Buyback & Resell program addresses the problem at the point of sale: customers fill out an online form, receive a value estimate, and bring gently used IKEA furniture to any participating store in exchange for store credit. Items that pass inspection enter the As-Is section for resale; those that cannot be resold are recycled under IKEA’s zero-waste-to-landfill policy.

The U.S. program now runs in 33 stores and, as of 2025, accepts more than 5,000 product types, including tables, chairs, storage units, lamps, and kids’ furniture among many. Globally, IKEA’s circular initiatives contributed to a 24.3 percent reduction in the company’s climate footprint while revenue grew 30.9 percent. Sofas, mattresses, and modified products are not accepted. IKEA Family members currently receive 50 percent more in store credit through May 2026.

REI

REI’s Re/Supply program sold nearly 1.4 million items of used outdoor gear in 2024, double the volume from 2019. The program accepts trade-ins of gently used REI-brand and name-brand gear including backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, and apparel. Members receive store credit; items are inspected, cleaned, and resold at a discount. Selling a used item through Re/Supply emits at least 50 percent less carbon than selling a new equivalent, even accounting for shipping, cleaning, and remerchandising.

REI also became the first major U.S. retailer to reach 90 percent operational waste diversion, achieving zero-waste certification in 2024 that audited and independently verified — ahead of Walmart and Target. Three of its distribution centers hold TRUE Zero Waste certification. In 2024, about 52 percent of the polyester and 45 percent of the nylon in REI Co-op products came from recycled sources. REI also charges brand partners a recycling fee to discourage individual plastic poly bags, and the majority of brands it carries have eliminated them as standard practice.

Related Reading

• Where Is the Circular Packaging Economy in 2026?
• How to Recycle Ink Cartridges
• Close the Loop: A Primer on Circular Economy
• How Patagonia Is Recycling Bottles into Jackets

Editor’s Note: Originally written by Sarah Lozanova on April 10, 2017, this article was substantially updated in April 2026.

The post 7 Retailers With Impressive Recycling Programs appeared first on Earth911.

Some of the most exciting designs emerging from the world of sustainable fashion are those utilizing uncommon materials. There are gowns sculpted with grass roots, sequins made from algae, and electrical wires woven into lace. Now, researchers and designers at Aalto University can add another unusual substance to that list: the remains of a 300-year-old wooden shipwreck.

In 2019, a hotel in the Finnish city of Oulu undertook renovations that uncovered a 17th-century vessel buried beneath a parking lot. Called the Hahtiperä wreck, the finding was the oldest of its kind in this region, prompting conservators to raise the seven-by-20-meter ship for preservation. A few fragments remained, though, and researchers from Aalto’s Bioinnovation Center seized the opportunity to save these bits from the trash.

After removing the outer layers, designers shredded and dissolved the wood into pulp. They then utilized their trademarked Ioncell process—developed in collaboration with Helsinki University—which recycles materials like paper, straw, and other textile waste into silky fibers.

Lecturer Anna-Mari Leppisaari was responsible for machine-knitting the undyed yarn into a pair of seamless dresses, one of which is on display at Oulu Art Museum for an exhibition about the future of fashion. A sleek A-line shape, the garment’s marbled pattern mimics that of wood grain. It weights less than a pound.

“Of course, a shipwreck is an exceptional case, but it’s also a story that makes people pause and appreciate materials in a new way,” lead designer Pirjo Kääriäinen says. “If something this beautiful can be made from centuries-old wood, why do we keep throwing away materials that could still be circulated and reused?”

The second dress will be on view in September for the university’s Designs for a Cooler Planet exhibition. (via The History Blog)

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article This Wood-Fiber Dress Was Made from a 17th-Century Shipwreck appeared first on Colossal.

Every kilogram of medical X-ray film holds 5 to 15 grams of silver — enough to make tossing those old films in the trash not just an environmental problem, but an outright waste of a recoverable precious metal. Add the fact that it’s also illegal to throw X-rays in the garbage in most jurisdictions, and the case for recycling them becomes urgent.

Millions of Americans still have film X-rays sitting in file folders, shoe boxes, or back-of-drawer oblivion. These relics from a pre-digital era of medical imaging need to be handled safely. Whether you’re a patient trying to clear out a closet or a smaller clinic still managing physical archives, understanding how X-ray film recycling works, why it matters, and who accepts it can help you make a responsible choice that’s good for the environment and, in some cases, your wallet.

What’s Inside an X-Ray Film

X-ray films are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, the same material used in many beverage bottles, coated with an emulsion layer containing silver halide crystals. When the film is exposed to X-ray radiation, those silver halide crystals capture the image by converting to metallic silver to produce the dark-and-light diagnostic image your doctor reads.

That silver content is why X-ray film is worth recycling. A research paper in the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering reports that medical X-ray films typically contain between 5 and 15 grams of silver per kilogram of film. That’s the highest silver concentration of any common photographic material and a meaningful quantity: at 2025 silver spot prices hovering around $30 to $35 per troy ounce, a 50-pound box of old hospital films can yield real financial value through silver recovery.

The plastic substrate, once the silver has been stripped out, is recyclable PET. Nothing in a properly recycled X-ray film needs to go to a landfill.

Why You Can’t Just Throw X-Rays Away

Federal and state regulations prohibit tossing X-ray films in the ordinary waste stream for two separate reasons.

First, silver is classified as a hazardous material in landfill environments. When films degrade in landfills, silver leaches into soil and groundwater, where it can harm aquatic ecosystems and contaminate drinking water supplies. The EPA’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act governs how silver-bearing waste must be handled. X-ray films older than 50 years may be made from nitrocellulose, a highly flammable material that requires special EPA-regulated transport and disposal handling.

Second, X-ray films are protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA and its successor, the HITECH Act. That means they cannot simply be thrown out, shredded in a standard office shredder, or otherwise disposed of without ensuring the images and any associated patient data are rendered permanently unreadable. The responsibility for proper disposal falls on whoever has the films, the originating medical facility, or, in some states, the patient themselves.

How X-Ray Film Is Recycled

The modern silver recovery process is efficient and well-established. According to Radiopaedia, the current standard method — called the “wash” process — recovers more than 99.9% of the silver in the film.

The process typically unfolds in four stages:

• Collection and sorting. Films are collected, weighed, and assessed. Films received in paper patient jackets have those jackets separated first. The paper goes to standard recycling centers, and the film is handled separately.
• Shredding and chemical wash. The film is shredded and immersed in a chemical bath of cyanide solution, though some facilities now use alternative reagents to dissolve the silver emulsion from the plastic base.
• Electrolytic silver recovery. Silver is separated from the solution by electrolysis, producing refined silver that can be cast into bars or coins and returned to the industrial silver market.
• PET plastic recycling. The now-clear plastic substrate is baled and sent to PET recyclers for reuse in manufacturing.

HIPAA-compliant recyclers also provide a Certificate of Destruction documenting that all protected health information on the films has been permanently and irrecoverably destroyed, which is essential for any medical facility’s compliance records.

Most New X-Rays Are Already Digital But Film Persists

The vast majority of U.S. hospitals and large imaging centers have completed the transition to digital radiography, which eliminates film entirely. Digital systems transmit images directly to secure electronic health records, reducing cost, storage burden, and chemical waste.

However, film-based imaging persists in several settings, such as some smaller clinics, rural practices, dental offices, veterinary practices, and industrial non-destructive testing (NDT) applications, which continue to use conventional film. If you’re receiving imaging at a smaller or independent practice, it’s worth asking directly: “Do you use digital imaging, or do you still produce physical film?” If the answer is film, follow up with: “What is your policy for recycling X-rays when they’re no longer needed for my care?”

A responsible provider should have a documented recycling process in place. Many do so because the silver recovery value incentivizes facilities to partner with certified recyclers rather than pay for disposal.

Recycling Programs: Who Accepts X-Ray Film

The X-ray recycling landscape is largely served by specialized national companies rather than municipal programs. Most curbside and drop-off programs do not accept X-ray film. Here are reputable options for both medical facilities and individuals.

If you’re a patient with a few old X-rays at home from a broken bone, a dental procedure, or years of routine imaging, the options are more limited than for medical facilities, but they exist.

Most of the major X-ray recycling companies set minimum weight thresholds for free pickup (often 30 to 50 pounds without paper jackets). A typical individual patient’s collection of personal X-rays won’t meet that threshold, so your options include:

• Mail-in services. Many recyclers, including B.W. Recycling/XRayFilmsDisposal.com and X-Ray Films Recycling, accept small-quantity mail-in shipments. You’ll typically pay postage; the recycler may pay you a small amount or simply provide free recycling in return. Contact the provider first to confirm their current individual consumer process.
• Check local hazardous waste events. Some municipal household hazardous waste (HHW) events accept medical imaging film. Check with your county or city’s waste management program. Call ahead to confirm, as not all HHW programs accept X-ray film, and policies vary.
• Return to your provider. Some medical facilities will accept old films for recycling as a patient service. Ask your clinic, hospital, or specialist’s office directly.
• Contact your original imaging center. Many imaging centers retain legal ownership of films they produce, and some will accept returned films for recycling at no cost to the patient. Policies vary, and a call is often worth the time.

Watch for a common source of confusion: HIPAA’s destruction requirements apply to covered entities, such as healthcare providers and insurers, and their business associates, but not typically to individual patients who receive copies of their own records. As a patient, you are not obligated to follow HIPAA disposal procedures for your own X-rays. That said, ensuring the secure destruction of your imaging records remains sound personal data hygiene.

What You Can Do

• Don’t throw X-rays in the trash or recycling bin. They are not accepted in municipal recycling programs and may be illegal to landfill in your state.
• Ask about digital imaging before your next appointment. Confirm whether your provider uses digital or film-based imaging, and ask about their film recycling policy if film is still in use.
• Search for a recycler using Earth911. earth911.com/recycling-search can help locate the few local options for X-ray film in the United States.
• If you’re a patient with personal X-rays, contact a national recycler directly. Most will advise on mail-in options for small quantities. Don’t let confusion leave films sitting in a drawer indefinitely.
• If your facility still uses film, set up a certified recycling program. The silver recovery value offsets the cost of a certified pickup, and a HIPAA-compliant Certificate of Destruction protects your organization from liability.

The post How To Recycle X-Ray Film appeared first on Earth911.

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What we call waste is really just misallocated feedstock—raw materials waiting to be cycled back into the next generation of products and packaging. According to research by the World Economic Forum and United Nations Development Programme, the circular economy could unlock $4.5 trillion in new global value by 2030, and investors are racing to capture part of that opportunity. Meet Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh, Director of Innovation at Overlay Capital, an Atlanta-based alternative investment firm whose Waste and Materials Fund is backing both early-stage materials innovators and later-stage recycling operations with established infrastructure. Overlay’s strategy involves investing in innovation and implementation simultaneously—in both startups and established companies—to accelerate progress across multiple layers of the circular economy. It offers a window into where smart money sees the materials transition heading.

Elizabeth explains that sortation is the biggest bottleneck at the materials recycling facilities (MRFs) your garbage and recycling are sent to after curbside collection. The U.S. is simultaneously the world’s leading exporter of scrap aluminum and the number one importer of finished aluminum, because we’ve lacked domestic sorting capacity. Overlay has invested in companies like AMP Robotics, which recently closed a 20-year contract with SPSA, a southeastern Virginia municipal authority, to sort all recyclables from four to five cities using AI-driven systems. When you fix sortation, she says, you trigger a domino effect: recycling rates climb, landfill life extends, and margins improve as higher-purity materials command premium prices.

Overlay’s portfolio also includes next-generation materials companies united by a common thesis: they must be better, faster, cheaper, and more sustainable than what they replace. Cruz Foam converts chitin from shrimp shells into compostable packaging foam. Simplifyber uses cellulose to create biodegradable soft goods through 3D molding, bypassing traditional textile manufacturing entirely. Terra CO2 just closed a $124 million Series B to scale low-carbon cement technology that could cut into concrete’s 8% share of annual global CO2 emissions. Each uses abundant, waste-derived feedstocks and has achieved or is on a clear path to price parity with incumbents.

You can learn more about Overlay Capital at overlaycapital.com.

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Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on January 12, 2026.

The post Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Turning Waste Into New Products And Packaging With Overlay Capital’s Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh appeared first on Earth911.

Recycling in Ontario is changing in a big way. As of January 1, 2026, the province has fully transitioned to a new Blue Box system that changes who is responsible for recycling and is intended to make the process more consistent across Ontario.

Under the new rules, recycling is now managed and funded by the companies that produce packaging and paper products, rather than municipalities. This shift is known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The idea is that companies should take more responsibility for the waste they create, while making recycling systems easier for residents to navigate.

The goal is to recycle more, send less waste to landfills, and move toward a more circular economy. But for many Ontarians, the new rules also raise a lot of questions. Here are some of the most common ones.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What changed in Ontario’s recycling system in 2026?

Ontario’s Blue Box program is now fully run by producers – the companies that create packaging and paper products. That means they are responsible for collecting, sorting, and recycling those materials.

An organization called Circular Materials now helps operate the Blue Box program across Ontario.

For most residents, the day-to-day experience may still look similar. The province will continue using the same blue boxes, the same curbside pickup and will continue to accept many of the same items. But behind the scenes the system has changed significantly, with the goal of creating more consistent recycling rules across the province.

2. Why is Ontario changing its recycling system?

Before this transition, municipalities shared the cost and responsibility of recycling programs, and each city or region often had its own rules. That meant something recyclable in one community might not be accepted in another.

The new system is meant to reduce that confusion. By making producers responsible for the materials they put into the marketplace, the Blue Box program should, in theory, put more pressure on companies to reduce unnecessary packaging and design products that are easier to recycle. However, advocates have raised concerns about the true efficacy of this program, including looser reporting requirements, lack of transparency in operations, increased incineration of recyclable materials, and the exclusion of many groups like multi-residential buildings, public spaces and schools.

3. Will recycling rules still differ depending on where I live?

Historically, yes. What you could recycle in Toronto might not have been accepted in London, Kingston, or another municipality.

The new Blue Box system is designed to make accepted materials more consistent across Ontario. However, some local differences may still exist in how recycling is collected. For example, some municipalities may use blue boxes, while others use large recycling carts. Pickup schedules and collection contractors may also vary by region.

So while the rules about what can be recycled are becoming more standardized, the way recycling is collected may still look different from place to place.

4. Can I recycle…?

If you’ve ever stood over your recycling bin wondering, “can I recycle this?” You’re not alone.

Some cities across Ontario have helpful tools. For example, if you live in Toronto, one of the easiest ways to check is by using the Waste Wizard, an online tool that lets you search specific items and find out whether they belong in recycling, garbage, organics, or special drop-off.

Although Toronto’s Waste Wizard is one of the best-known examples, other municipalities across Ontario offer similar search tools or waste apps. They can be especially helpful for sorting items like black plastic, coffee pods, takeout containers, or mixed-material packaging.

The updated Blue Box program expands the list of accepted materials. In many cases, you can now recycle more types of packaging than before, including items like foam containers, black plastic, and certain flexible plastics. But contamination — such as food waste, liquids, or hazardous materials — can still create major problems in the recycling stream.

5. If the province has one system, why do municipalities still matter?

Even though the recycling rules are now set at the provincial level, municipalities still play a major role in waste management.

They are often responsible for services like garbage collection, green bins or organics, household hazardous waste depots and local public education. Municipalities also help residents understand changes to collection schedules, bin types and local disposal options.

In other words, the province may be standardizing the recycling system, but municipalities are still an important part of how that system works in practice.

6. Does recycling actually work?

This is one of the most important questions and one of the hardest to answer simply.

Recycling can help reduce landfill waste and recover useful materials, but it is far from a perfect solution. In Canada, recycling rates remain low. Currently, only 7% of Ontario’s waste is recycled through the Blue Box. This is due to a combination of factors, including contamination, complex materials, and limited recycling markets.

Ontario’s new recycling system is intended to improve outcomes by making producers more accountable and expanding what can be collected. But recycling alone will not solve the waste crisis.

Reducing waste in the first place and reusing materials whenever possible remains essential.

7. What should I do with electronics or hazardous waste?

Electronics and hazardous materials should never go in your Blue Box.

Items like batteries, old phones, chargers, paint, propane tanks, light bulbs, and cleaning chemicals require special handling. If they are placed in recycling, they can contaminate other materials, damage equipment, or create safety risks for workers.

Instead, these items should be taken to a designated drop-off depot, household hazardous waste site, or e-waste collection program in your municipality. Many communities in Ontario offer permanent depots or seasonal collection events for these materials.

If you are unsure, your municipality’s waste lookup tool is the best place to check.

The Bottom Line

Ontario’s new recycling rules are a major shift. By making producers responsible for the packaging they create the province is trying to improve recycling and reduce confusion for residents.

But even the best recycling system depends on public understanding and participation. Knowing what belongs in your Blue Box and taking the extra moment to check when you’re unsure can make a real difference.

At the same time, recycling is only one part of the solution. If Ontario is serious about reducing waste and protecting the environment, we also need to focus on addressing the systemic root of continuous waste generation in the first place.

In a converted 18th-century chapel on the grounds of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, a strange form creeps through openings in the architecture. One can imagine its clipper- and knife-footed tendrils scurrying across the floor as it spills from an upper aperture and even slithers around part of the building’s exterior. Its otherworldly genesis is at the hands of Nicola Turner, known for her monumental, contorted textile installations that often surge from structures and public spaces.

Turner’s solo exhibition, Time’s Scythe, comprises forms made of recycled wool and horsehair, which she hand-stitches inside of mesh to create the bulging, knotted forms. “This is Turner’s first large-scale installation to use pale wool and creates a different energy to her dark sculptures, moving away from their more melancholic character,” the gallery says.

Time’s Scythe continues through September 27 in Wakefield. If you go, check out LR Vandy’s provocative exhibition, Rise, which also continues into September. See more on Turner’s Instagram, and for more twisting, creature-like forms, might also enjoy the work of Kate MccGwire.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article A Giant Wool Form by Nicola Turner Heaves and Skitters Through an 18th-Century Chapel appeared first on Colossal.

Ours is a throw-away culture. That even applies to houses. When homes or buildings are demolished to make way for a road, condo development or another house or building, the materials and contents are usually sent to the landfill. As with other characteristics of our consumer-driven societies, it’s wrong.

Many components — wood, concrete, bricks, metal, plastic, vinyl — can be reused, repurposed or recycled. It’s not a new idea, but it hasn’t taken off the way it should. In many jurisdictions, people have been able to apply for salvage rights, allowing them to take useful items from a home or structure slated for demolition. And “deconstruction” companies have been around for a while, but they’re the exception rather than the rule.

In some cases, entire houses are moved to another location and fixed up rather than being demolished. Vancouver circular construction think tank Light House estimates about 20 per cent of demolished homes here could have been moved and another 60 per cent could have been deconstructed, with materials reused or recycled.

Some municipalities are finally seeing the value in keeping materials out of landfills, implementing bylaw and regulation changes to encourage salvaging and recycling. It’s about time!

Vancouver has some rules around recycling materials from house demolitions, depending on the age and character of the home, and offers a “Construction and Demolition Waste Toolkit.”

As a Tyee article reports, population growth in Vancouver meant tearing down 7,100 single-family homes from 2012 to 2023 and about 2,700 every year in the larger Metro Vancouver region to make way for multiplex housing such as highrise towers. About one-third of Metro Vancouver’s landfill is from construction and demolition.

The problem isn’t just the waste of good materials. A 2025 Australian study notes that disposing of construction and demolition waste in landfills “has been widely recognized as a source of leachate, containing toxic contaminants, which pose significant environmental risks.”

And the building and construction sector accounts for about 37 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with close to one-third of that from the energy used to produce materials for a building.

According to the CBC, “Replacing one building with another generates an entire building’s worth of emissions, which means that, from a climate perspective, it’s better to extend the lifetime of those materials and reuse them than discard them.”

The Tyee article highlights a Vancouver company, Vema Deconstruction, that claims to have saved from 135,000 to 225,000 kilograms of construction materials since its founding in 2022. It’s not just buildings that can be recycled. The Patullo Bridge that connected New Westminster and Surrey across the Fraser River was recently replaced, and steel, asphalt and concrete from the old bridge will be recycled.

Diverting construction materials has many benefits. As the City of Vancouver notes, “Recycling and reusing building materials has cost-saving incentives, saves trees, conserves landfill space, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and supports affordable housing.”

Reclaiming wood is especially beneficial. It means no trees have to be cut down, leaving them to sequester climate-altering carbon dioxide, and for the numerous other benefits trees, especially old-growth, provide. The retained or reused wood continues to store carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases — when wood decomposes, it emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And it can cost less than cutting, transporting and processing timber.

Of course, deconstructing a home takes longer and usually costs more than demolishing and carting it to the landfill. That’s why government incentives and regulations are often necessary, as well as more avenues to sell reclaimed materials.

As with just about everything in our consumer-based societies, though, the economic system itself creates the problem. The bottom line rarely underlines the most environmentally sustainable path. Using more products, doing things quickly and discarding and replacing products and materials all generate more profit than conserving, reducing, reusing and recycling.

We need to aim for a circular rather than a linear economy. This means considering the entire life cycle of the goods we produce — designing products to create zero or minimal waste and pollution, keeping products in use through better design, repair, reuse and recycling and safely returning materials to the natural environment while using renewable energy.

Homes and buildings are a good place to start. Deconstruction should be mandatory.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

The post Don’t throw that home away! appeared first on rabble.ca.

On average, each American throws away about 81 pounds of clothing, shoes, and household textiles every year. That’s roughly a hamper full every month for each person. For a family of four, this adds up to over 320 pounds of textiles tossed or donated each year. Most people don’t realize how much they discard until they actually weigh it over a year.

The number comes from EPA’s most recent, 2018 sustainable-materials accounting, which puts U.S. post-consumer textile generation at roughly 17 million tons and the recovery rate at 14.7 percent. While the EPA has discontinued its reporting, ThredUp’s 2025 Resale Report and the Apparel Impact Institute updates suggest per-capita generation has continued rising. Most of what falls inside that 14.7 percent is downcycled into industrial wiping rags or insulation, not turned into new clothing.

What “donating” actually does

The mental model in most American closets is that the donation bin is the recycling bin. It isn’t. Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the secondhand chains sell what they can on the resale floor, typically only 10 to 30 percent of the clothing they accept as donations. The rest is sold by the pound to textile graders, who export the higher grades to wholesale markets in West Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central America, bale the remainder as wiping rags or insulation feedstock, and landfill the rest.

That export pipeline is under pressure. Ghana, Kenya, and Chile have moved to restrict or refuse low-grade used-clothing imports, citing the volume of unsellable fast-fashion synthetics arriving contaminated and culturally mismatched. The January 2025 GAO report on textile recovery flagged the offshore-disposal pathway as structurally fragile and quietly subsidized by U.S. consumers who treat donation as absolution.

The amount of clothing waste is closely tied to price. Since 1995, clothing prices in the U.S. have dropped by over 30 percent, even as other costs have gone up. This is mainly due to ultra-fast-fashion brands like Shein and Temu. Many clothes, especially those made from polyester-spandex blends, aren’t made to last, be repaired, or recycled. They’re often thrown out after just six wears. According to McKinsey’s State of Fashion report, the average piece of clothing is now worn only seven to ten times before being discarded, much less than in the past.

The household bill

The value of clothing can change a lot, so it’s harder to put an exact dollar amount on waste compared to food. Still, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average U.S. household spends about $1,900 a year on clothes. If 30 to 40 percent of those clothes are thrown out within two seasons, that means a household is tossing $570 to $760 worth of new clothing every year.

The environmental impact of clothing is even bigger before it reaches your closet. The UN Environment Programme says fashion is responsible for 2 to 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 20 percent of industrial water pollution. Making just one cotton t-shirt uses about 2,700 liters of water, which is as much as one person drinks in two and a half years.

The policy lever finally arriving

For years, there were no rules holding clothing producers responsible for textile waste in the U.S. That changed with California’s SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024, which is the first law of its kind in the country. CalRecycle chose Landbell USA to run the program starting February 27, 2026. Brands selling clothes and household textiles in California will have to help pay for collection and processing, with requirements rolling out through 2030. Other states like New York, Massachusetts, and Washington are considering similar laws that would make clothing manufacturers cover the costs of fast fashion waste.

Fiber-to-fiber recycling — the missing technology piece — is moving, slowly. Circ, Syre, and Reju are at pilot or first-commercial scale. Renewcell, the most visible name in cellulosic recycling, filed for bankruptcy in early 2024 and has since been acquired and restarted as Circulose. Textile recycling technology is real, but the economics of the business still depend on virgin-fiber prices going higher, the development of a sorting infrastructure, and the kind of policy support SB 707 is now beginning to provide.

What You Can Do

At home and while shopping:

1. Focus on slowing down how often you buy new clothes, not just buying less. Choose better quality items and wear them for longer. If you double how long you wear each garment, you can cut its total emissions by about half.
2. Try to fix your clothes before replacing them. Local tailors, Repair Cafés, and repair programs from brands like Patagonia, Nudie Jeans, and Eileen Fisher can help you get more use out of what you already have.
3. Be honest when sorting your donations. Clean, up-to-date, and resaleable items should go to local thrift stores. Items that are stained or torn should go to textile-specific takeback bins at places like H&M or Madewell, where they can be properly processed.
4. Before putting anything in your curbside bin, use Earth911’s recycling search to find local textile drop-off locations by ZIP Code. Most curbside bins don’t accept clothing or textiles.

In your community:

1. Support textile extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws in your state. SB 707 is the example to follow, and the next few states to pass similar laws will help decide if this approach can grow.
2. Ask retailers to clearly label fiber content and recyclability. The EU will require digital product passports by 2027, and U.S. brands selling overseas will have to comply. Whether these labels appear in the U.S. depends on consumer demand.
3. Support and volunteer at local repair and reuse programs. Repair Cafés, Buy Nothing groups, and clothing swaps help reduce waste before it starts, which is the most effective way to make a difference.

The post Where Waste Comes From: Your Closet appeared first on Earth911.

Turn back the clock to our first conversation with David Katz, founder of Plastic Bank. He shares his vision for a regenerative society built on grassroots recycling programs that help low-income regions build resilient communities. The Vancover, B.C., startup compensates more than 30,000 plastic recyclers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and Egypt. To date, Plastic Bank has stopped over 99 million pounds of plastic waste — the equivalent of more than 2 billion plastic bottles — from entering the world’s oceans, and the pace of its collections is accelerating. The people who collect plastic are paid for the material they deposit at more than 511 Plastic Bank branches. Katz’s team has partnered with more than 200 companies, including Procter & Gamble, HelloFresh, L’Oreal, and Coca-Cola, to create circular economies in plastic packaging.

Their next goal is to capture 10 billion bottles, which still represents only 1.7% of the 583 billion produced in 2021, according to Euromonitor. David explains that a shift in mindset from extractive ownership to regenerative stewardship can break the economic mold and bring prosperity in regions where so much valuable material currently is treated as waste. Plastic Bank uses a blockchain-based data collection and reporting system that helps collectors track their earnings and which provides transparency and traceability for the plastic captured. Plastic Bank works with plastic recyclers to convert the collected bottles into SocialPlastic, a raw material for making new products. They sell plastic #1, #2, and #4 to industry to recover their costs. You can learn more about Plastic Bank at plasticbank.com.

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Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on March 23, 2022.

The post Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Plastic Bank’s David Katz on Grassroots Recycling Solutions appeared first on Earth911.

Corrugated cardboard makes its way from warehouse to mill in about two weeks. In contrast, plastic packaging can take centuries to break down, and even the most optimistic estimates say only 5 to 6 percent of U.S. plastic is actually recycled. This difference highlights both the promise and the challenges of creating a circular packaging economy.

Back in April 2020, when this article first appeared, the recycling industry was still struggling after China banned imported recyclables in 2018. Around that time, DS Smith opened its first North American recycling plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, marking the first closed-loop corrugated packaging system. Five years later, the circular packaging sector has become a $245 billion global market and is expected to nearly double by 2034.

However, growth does not always mean true circularity. The gap between what companies promise and what recycling systems actually deliver is under more scrutiny than ever.

How the Recycling Loop Works and Where It Breaks

Many people picture recycling as a simple process: items go from the curbside bin to a materials recovery facility (MRF) and then become new products. In reality, the process is more complicated. Mixed curbside collections have about a 25 percent contamination rate in baled recyclables from MRFs, so more sorting is needed before they can be turned into new materials. In the past, this extra sorting was often done cheaply in other countries.

After China stopped buying U.S. recyclables in 2018, the U.S. was left with about a third of its collected materials and no place to send them. This led to a crisis: many communities lost their recycling programs, and it became obvious that the U.S. needed more domestic processing and cleaner materials from better recycling programs.

Paper and corrugated cardboard are still the big success stories in circular packaging. In 2024, the U.S. recycled over 33 million tons of cardboard, or about 90,000 tons each day, reaching a recovery rate between 69 and 74 percent, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. The share of recycled paper used at U.S. mills has grown from 36.6 percent in 2005 to 44.4 percent in 2024.

Aluminum also does well, with the average beverage can containing about 73 percent recycled material.

Plastic is still a major challenge. Only about 5 to 6 percent of U.S. plastic packaging is recovered and made into new packaging or products.

A Growing Market With Caveats

Europe is leading the way in recycling growth, thanks to strict regulations. North America is catching up through corporate ESG commitments, extended producer responsibility programs, and state-level policies.

Paper-based packaging leads in circular packaging revenue, making up about 40 percent of the global market in 2024. This is due to advances in fiber recovery technology and the fact that consumers are used to recycling cardboard. Reusable and refillable packaging is growing quickly, but it is still a small part of the market. As a result, the food and beverage sector makes up nearly 47 percent of circular packaging demand, and packaging companies are teaming up with recyclers to meet this need.

Industry consolidation signals how seriously investors have bet on this sector. In July 2024, Smurfit Kappa completed its acquisition of WestRock to form Smurfit WestRock, one of the world’s largest paper-based packaging companies, with $32 billion in combined revenue and 100,000 employees across 40 countries. Separately, International Paper announced an agreement to acquire DS Smith in a deal valuing DS Smith at approximately $9.9 billion. These deals suggest that fiber-based, recyclable packaging is a durable growth market.

The DS Smith Model, Five Years Later

In March 2020, DS Smith opened its first North American recycling plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, right next to an existing paper mill and corrugated packaging facility. These three sites could make, use, collect, and recycle corrugated boxes in about two weeks, creating a true closed loop. DS Smith got clean materials from distribution centers, packaging facilities, and retailers instead of mixed curbside collections, which helped keep contamination low.

Since then, this model has grown significantly. DS Smith, now part of International Paper, and other companies have shown that fiber-based packaging circular systems can work on a large scale. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s 2024 Global Commitment Progress Report, which covers over 1,000 organizations representing 20 percent of global plastic packaging production, noted that companies like Amcor have “doubled the share of recycled content in their plastic packaging, making as much progress in four years as in the four decades before,” according to EMF leader Rob Opsomer.

Where Optimism Meets Reality

But the numbers are more complex than market growth projections suggest. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) found that the 2025 targets set by its member companies in 2018—to cut virgin plastic use by 18 percent, reach 26 percent recycled content, and achieve 100 percent reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging—are now mostly out of reach without major changes. Together, these companies have avoided using 9.6 million tons of virgin plastic since 2018, but that is less than 3 percent of annual plastic production. At the same time, the overall market increased plastic packaging use by 8 percent.

Scaling up reusable packaging has been especially hard. Even though 64 percent of EMF Commitment participants have started pilot programs, reuse models make up only 1.3 percent of packaging, according to the Foundation’s 2024 analysis. The main obstacles are structural: the U.S. lacks a shared reverse logistics system, does not offer enough consumer incentives, and has no binding policies to make reuse practical.

Greenwashing has made the credibility problem worse. In October 2024, the legal advocacy group ClientEarth released a report saying that vague plastic recycling claims, like “100-percent recyclable” and circular loop images, mislead consumers about the real environmental impact of products and violate UK and EU consumer protection laws.

“The thing that blew my mind,” said Myles Cohen, founder of consulting firm Circular Ventures, at the September 2024 Packaging Recycling Summit, “is that in the company’s defense, they argued, ‘Hey, our statements were just classic puffery.’” Cohen called greenwashing “a pet peeve that damages not just individual companies but the packaging and recycling industries as a whole.”

Consumer trust is clearly declining. According to 2024 data, 32 percent of Americans now doubt that curbside recycling works, up from 14 percent four years ago. A related trend called “greenhushing” has also appeared, where brands stop talking about their sustainability progress to avoid criticism.

What Actually Works

Not all circular packaging strategies are equally effective. The evidence shows a clear ranking of materials:

• Fiber-based packaging, like corrugated cardboard and paperboard, has proven circularity supported by real infrastructure. The DS Smith model is successful because it uses clean materials and relies on commercial, not residential, collection systems.
• Aluminum is the most valuable recyclable material. Recycling just one can saves as much energy as half a gallon of gas. Beverage cans contain 73 percent recycled content, and steel cans are recycled at an 80 percent rate, so metal packaging truly supports a circular system.
• Reusable packaging is most effective in closed-loop commercial settings, such as logistics, food service, and institutional supply chains. It does not work as well in consumer retail or quick-service restaurants, where returning packaging is expensive and unreliable.
• Compostable packaging is only a limited solution. More industry analysts are skeptical because most communities do not have home composting, industrial composting facilities often reject packaging, and composting creates greenhouse gases instead of recovering materials.
• Plastic recycling needs a very specific approach. PET bottles and HDPE containers are recycled more successfully than most other plastics. Flexible plastics like films, pouches, and sachets are still mostly unrecyclable on a large scale and often end up polluting the environment.

The EPA estimates that updating U.S. recycling infrastructure will cost between $36.5 and $43.4 billion, mainly for better packaging recovery, more composting capacity, and improved plastics processing. This investment has been slow to happen because there are no binding policy requirements.

The E.U. Regulatory Push and the U.S. Gap

Europe has moved decisively. The E.U.’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) requires 70 percent of all packaging waste to be recycled by 2030, with plastics recycling rates targeted to double to 55 percent. Member states must cut packaging waste per capita by 15 percent by 2040 versus 2018 baselines. The European Commission is also requiring products claiming to be biobased, biodegradable, or compostable to meet minimum, verifiable standards to combat greenwashing.

In the U.S., California is leading the way with extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws and the new Voluntary Carbon Market Disclosures Act, both aimed at reducing greenwashing in sustainability claims. However, there is little action at the federal level.

At the November 2024 Busan negotiations for a UN Global Plastics Treaty, countries failed to reach a binding agreement. This has left a major policy gap and prevents a coordinated global effort.

What You Can Do

If you want to make a positive difference, it helps to be both a conscious shopper and an active citizen. Here are some steps you can take in your daily life:

• Choose fiber and aluminum products. Corrugated boxes, paperboard, and aluminum cans have real end-of-use recycling systems. Recycling these materials truly closes the loop.
• Don’t just trust the label. “Recyclable” does not always mean it can be recycled where you live. Check if your local program accepts the material, and use Earth911’s recycling search to see what is accepted in your area.
• Focus on reducing packaging, not just recycling. Buying products with less packaging, choosing concentrates, or picking refillable options has a bigger environmental impact than recycling alone.
• Support EPR policies. Extended producer responsibility moves recycling costs from cities and taxpayers to the companies that create packaging. This is a structural solution that market growth alone cannot achieve.
• Ask companies for details. If you see vague claims like “eco-friendly” or “100-percent recyclable,” ask questions: Where is it recyclable? What infrastructure is used? What percentage of the material is actually recycled? Demand clear, verifiable answers.

If you value the environment, keep a variation on Smokey Bear’s familiar advice in mind: Only you can prevent the economy from burning down the planet. Your response needs to combine thoughtful choices when shopping with active communication with friends, family, the businesses you frequent, and the representatives you elect.

Editor’s Note: This article, originally authored by Gemma Alexander on April 14, 2020, was substantially updated in April 2026.

The post Where Is The Circular Packaging Economy In 2026? appeared first on Earth911.

On March 20, 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule change that could fundamentally shift how the federal government regulates a controversial type of plastic recycling called pyrolysis, also known as “advanced recycling.” Currently, the EPA treats pyrolysis plants as incinerators, restricting the release of toxic chemicals. The proposed rule would redefine them as factories, altering longstanding pollution controls.

Though it may seem minor, this rule change would weaken key pollution protections for pyrolysis plants. The result could be increased toxic emissions, with the burden falling on nearby communities—often low-income or predominantly Black, Latino, or Indigenous neighborhoods.

What is pyrolysis?

Pyrolysis involves heating plastic to very high temperatures in a container with little or no oxygen, preventing it from burning as it melts. The plastic breaks down into an oily liquid that can be used to make fuel, or it can be mixed back into the process that creates new plastic. The plastics industry calls this “advanced recycling” or “chemical recycling.” Environmental groups, such as the Ocean Conservancy, have called the process “the latest plastics industry deception.”

There are six pyrolysis plants running in the United States today, in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Indiana, and Georgia. More are being built in Arizona and West Virginia. The industry wants to build many more, but says strict EPA rules make it hard to get permits.

Why the rule change matters

The Clean Air Act is the federal law that limits air pollution. One part of it — Section 129 — sets strict rules for incinerators. It requires them to limit nine kinds of pollutants, including dioxins, heavy metals, and tiny particles that lodge deep in human lungs. Pyrolysis plants have been covered by these rules since 2005. The EPA’s new proposal would move them from Section 129 to Section 111, which covers fewer pollutants.

John Walke, a clean air expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Associated Press that the timing is the real problem. Removing the old rule would happen quickly. Writing a new one takes years. In between, he said, a plant could legally turn off its pollution controls.

“You could have a facility that was controlled on a Monday, preventing those hazardous air pollutants from being emitted into the atmosphere, and on Tuesday, the facility would have legal permission to turn off installed pollution controls,” Walke said. The reason a company would do that, he added, is simple: running pollution control equipment costs money.

James Pew of Earthjustice, a group that takes environmental cases to court, put it more bluntly to Inside Climate News: “As a practical matter, this definition change would mean EPA is completely deregulating a whole class of incinerators, these so-called pyrolysis units. And their pollution is really toxic.”

What the plastics industry says

The American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic companies, has lobbied for this change for years. Ross Eisenberg, who leads its plastics group, told the Associated Press that pyrolysis is not the same as burning. “The definition of incineration is to destroy it, right? You’re literally trying to make it go away,” he said. “That’s not what they’re doing here. They are trying to preserve it and recover the materials, which is recycling, which is manufacturing.”

Eisenberg argues that chemical recycling plants are already heavily regulated, citing other parts of the Clean Air Act that would still cover them, as well as requirements associated with state-level permits.

What scientists have actually found

The science on pyrolysis is at best mixed and can be partisan. A 2023 study by the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, found that mixing even a small amount of pyrolysis oil into new plastic production cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 18% to 23% compared to making plastic from scratch. The researchers used real operating data from eight U.S. pyrolysis facilities between 2017 and 2021.

But a 2025 paper in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering concludes that, depending on the size of the plant and how its emissions are measured, the same process can produce anywhere from 28% less to 30% more greenhouse gas emissions than ordinary fossil-fuel-based plastic production. The paper also notes that pyrolysis facilities release volatile organic compounds, fine particles, and a group of cancer-linked chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Those emissions, the authors wrote, fall hardest on communities that are mostly low-income or marginalized.

A 2023 report by Beyond Plastics found that of 11 chemical recycling plants then operating in the U.S., seven were sited in environmental justice communities. Six of those seven were pyrolysis plants.

Pyrolysis can reduce some forms of pollution while creating others, and the people who breathe those other emissions are usually not the ones making decisions about where plants are built.

How the public weighed in

The EPA gave the public 45 days to submit comments, from March 20 to May 4, 2026. Environmental groups organized quickly. A group including the Public Interest Research Group, Environment America, and Environmental Action collected and submitted more than 27,000 comments asking the agency to keep treating pyrolysis as incineration. The groups argue that pyrolysis can release up to 96 different toxic chemicals, including some linked to cancer and harm to developing children.

At a public hearing, a dozen speakers from Moms Clean Air Force testified against the change. Kiya Stanford, the group’s Georgia organizer, said the proposed rule “feels like a move to prioritize polluters over people.”

Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator who now runs Beyond Plastics, told Inside Climate News she was puzzled by how the change was announced. “I thought, could it be a mistake, or are they quietly trying to push this through?” she asked. The pyrolysis paragraph was buried inside a 17-page rule about wood waste burning.

Where to follow what happens next

The official record for this rule lives on the federal website regulations.gov, in docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0068. Every public comment, every supporting document, and the EPA’s eventual decision will appear there.

The first comment window closed on May 4. The EPA can still accept late comments, but it doesn’t have to count them. The bigger opportunity for public input is still ahead: the EPA said the comments collected on this docket will help it draft a new, separate rule focused entirely on advanced recycling. That second rule has not yet been published. When it is, the public will get another comment period of at least 30 days, often 45 to 60.

What You Can Do

• Follow the rules’ progress. Go to regulations.gov and search for EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0068. You can subscribe to email alerts to receive updates when the EPA posts.
• Be ready to comment on the next rule. When the EPA publishes its dedicated pyrolysis rule — likely later this year or next — you will have a chance to submit a public comment. Even a short, clear comment becomes part of the official record.
• Find out if a plant is near you. Pyrolysis plants are operating or under construction in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, Arizona, and West Virginia. If you live in one of those areas, state-level air quality rules will matter more than ever.
• Ask brands what “recycled” really means. Some products labeled as containing recycled plastic don’t actually contain recycled molecules. They use a paper accounting system called mass balance. Asking companies to explain their labels is a fair question.
• Use less plastic. The whole debate is about what to do with plastic after it exists. Choosing durable goods, refilling instead of replacing, and skipping single-use packaging keeps plastic out of the system entirely.

When the decision is likely

The current rule has two parts that move on different schedules. The disaster-recovery section involving wood waste is on a fast track. The EPA said it wants to finish that before the 2026 hurricane and wildfire season, which means a final decision is likely between late spring and early summer 2026.

The pyrolysis part will take until next year. The EPA has not announced a target date for its dedicated pyrolysis rule. Based on how quickly the agency is moving and what industry groups have told reporters, a reasonable guess is that a new proposed rule will appear in late 2026 or the first half of 2027, with a final version possibly in 2027 or 2028.

The National Resources Defense Council has announced plans to sue if the rule is finalized, a step that could delay implementation further. The EPA’s upcoming publication of its dedicated pyrolysis rule is the next key moment, as it will determine whether the government continues to uphold or dismantle existing pollution protections. This decision will shape the future of advanced plastic recycling in the U.S.

The post The EPA Is Changing the Rules for Plastic Recycling Plants appeared first on Earth911.

Pull the sheets back from the numbers and the American mattress starts to look less like a product and more like a disposal problem. The United States throws out an estimated 18.2 million mattresses a year — roughly 50,000 every day — and only about 19% of them are recycled. The rest, more than four out of five beds, are landfilled or incinerated.

A mattress is one of the largest, bulkiest, and most expensive things you own, and almost none of it has to be wasted. Recyclers can recover 80 to 95% of a mattress — steel, foam, fiber, and wood that become new products. Yet the default path for most beds is a hole in the ground, and that default costs the typical household twice: once to buy the bed, and again to get rid of it. Most mattresses are built to last seven to ten years, so a single household will buy and discard several over a lifetime. The bed itself is the obvious expense: a new queen mattress averages around $1,500, and even budget models start near $400.

The hidden cost shows up at the curb. Getting rid of an old mattress averages about $100 and runs from $40 to $200 or more depending on how you do it. Junk-hauling services typically charge $80 to $250. Municipal bulk pickup is often free but can mean a two- to eight-week wait, and many landfills tack on a $20 to $40 bulky-item fee. For a household replacing a bed every several years, disposal alone quietly adds up.

Why the landfill is the worst place for it

Mattresses are built to resist compression, which makes them miserable landfill tenants. Each one can take up as much as 23 cubic feet of space even after compacting, and their steel springs tangle and damage the heavy equipment that operators use to manage the waste. Multiply that by tens of thousands a day and mattresses become a stubborn drain on landfill capacity.

The waste is also material that holds real value. A typical mattress contains roughly 25 pounds of steel and 9 pounds of cotton, plus foam and wood. Across its programs, the Mattress Recycling Council reports keeping more than 555 million pounds of steel, foam, fiber, and wood out of landfills by recycling over 14 million mattresses. Buried beds throw all of that away.

A recycling system exists, but it’s uneven

Where you live largely decides whether recycling is even an option. Four states — California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Oregon, whose program began January 1, 2025 — run extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs. A small fee on every new mattress funds free drop-off through the industry’s Bye Bye Mattress program. The access is meaningful: in 2024, 98.4% of California residents lived within 15 miles of a collection site.

Once a mattress is dismantled, up to 75% of its materials become new products. The foam and fiber go into carpet padding, springs are melted down as scrap steel, and box-spring wood is chipped into mulch or biomass fuel. Outside the four EPR states, though, recycling depends on a patchwork of private facilities, and most households still pay to haul a bed away.

What you can do

• Recycle it where you can. In California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Oregon, drop-off is free through byebyemattress.com. Everywhere else, search by ZIP Code on Earth911’s recycling locator to find the nearest facility, if one is available.
• Donate a bed that still has life. Charities, shelters, and reuse organizations accept clean, structurally sound mattresses. Reuse beats recycling because it skips the dismantling step entirely.
• Extend the lifespan you already paid for. A protector, a supportive foundation, and regular rotation can push a quality mattress toward the long end of its seven-to-ten-year range, cutting both cost and waste.
• Ask the retailer about takeback before you buy. Many sellers will haul away your old mattress on delivery, sometimes routing it to a recycler. Confirm where it actually goes.
• Back producer-responsibility laws. EPR programs are the single biggest reason recycling is free and accessible in some states and not others. Their expansion is what moves the national recycling rate above 19%.

The post 18.2 Million Mattresses Disposed a Year, and Most of Them Get Buried appeared first on Earth911.