A Need to Make Recycling Work Better

An In-Depth Look at Recycling in North America

Recycling is critical to sustainability, and the life cycle management that we seek for our packaging. It has the potential to reduce litter, conserve natural resources and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling a plastic bottle, for example, can reduce its greenhouse gas impact by 25%. That’s why we have a goal of achieving a 50 percent recycling rate for PET plastic beverage containers in the U.S. by 2018 (85% in Canada). But if we’re going to identify workable solutions to reach that goal, we believe that America has to rethink the recycling challenge.

Recycling
Today
Recycling Awareness & Education
Rethinking Recycling
Looking Ahead

Currently both availability and participation in recycling programs is limited in the U.S.; while in Canada, where recycling is more accessible, participation rates are higher.

The State of Recycling in the U.S. and Canada

Today, around 30% of U.S. households don’t have access to curbside recycling and the availability of public space recycling is estimated at only 12%. The U.S. has a patchwork of varying recycling mandates, incentives, funding formulas and programs, whose reach and capability can be vastly different state to state and city to city. Logistics costs are also rising and government fiscal crises jeopardize the viability of programs. In Canada, 93% of the nation’s households have access to at least one type of recycling program, i.e. glass, paper, plastic and metals. Of these households, 97% made use of at least one recycling program.

3 in 10 PET plastic beverage bottles are recycled in the U.S., while in Canada the number is almost 7 in 10

As a result, only 3 in 10 PET plastic beverage bottles are recycled in the U.S. today, and rates are not improving significantly. In Canada, almost 7 in 10 plastic beverage containers were recycled last year—and the recycling rate continues to improve each year as the Canadian beverage industry introduces innovative waste management programs to help consumers recycle, wherever they may be on a given day.

Learn more about PET recycling at the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR)

There are a variety of ways to raise awareness about the importance of recycling and to promote participation—we support these efforts along with looking for more.

Keys to Recycling Success

We believe recycling rates can be improved by making it easier and more accessible for consumers. It’s also important to promote broad awareness and education about recycling. With that in mind, several possible solutions that can lead to better all around outcomes.

Broad awareness about the importance of recycling improves participation

Some 30 years ago, a few states adopted “bottle bills” to address the problem of beverage container litter. Currently, ten states have some form of bottle bills, most of which—with the exception of California and Oregon—are constrained by the necessity to bring back empty and dirty packaging to the grocery stores where we buy our food. While these laws generate high redemption rates for covered beverages, they do so at a high cost and do nothing to build the curbside, public space and commercial recycling infrastructure.

Nestlé Waters has supported efforts to modernize existing bottle bills by creating greater efficiency, lowering costs, and directing unclaimed deposits to help fund the recycling system and provide consumers with flexible return options. But we also believe there are other solutions that can lead to better overall outcomes.

Learn more about recycling in your area, visit Earth911.com

Case Study – Recycling Success in Manitoba

The Canadian province of Manitoba has a product stewardship system already in place. It is known as the "hybrid recycling model" or "Manitoba model." This industry led program is subsidizing municipal curbside recycling programs, supporting public education and awarness building efforts which inform and encourage citizens to recycle. Manitoba intends to divert 75% of its containers from landfills in the next three years. Nestlé Water Canada is a partner in this effort and we're watching closly to learn how this Extended Producer Responsibility model can be applied to promote solutions more broadly in the U.S.

A Potential Solution – Extended Producer Responsibility

We believe an approach called Extended Producer Responsibility—or EPR—can be an evolutionary step from bottle bills, and can address the nation’s recycling challenges more comprehensively.

A Potential Solution – Extended Producer Responsibility

Extended Producer Responsibility is a product stewardship approach that focuses operational responsibility and control for the management of packaging with the industry that produces it. In effect, EPR assigns environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles to the party that produces the product.

Because it spreads the costs across a wider set of materials than only beverage containers, EPR is capabale of getting more packaging back to be used again.

This model invests a nominal fee paid by the consumer for covered consumer packaged goods into building best-in-class municipal curbside recycling, public space and commercial recycling, and public education programs—and producers are held accountable for the programs’ effectiveness. Because it spreads the costs across a wider set of materials than only beverage containers, EPR is capabale of getting more packaging back to be used again. And because the fees that are collected stay in the system to help build and grow recycling—they won’t be siphoned off to subsidize other budget items.

We have been strong proponents of a similar approach in Canada where, in 2010, we helped launch a beverage industry product stewardship program in Manitoba. This "hybrid" system features four key elements:

Curbside recycling
Public space recycling
Industrial/commercial/institutional recycling
A strong public education/communications program

The early results of this program are encouraging. We also completed public spaces recycling pilots in the City of Sarnia and Niagara Region in Ontario in 2009 and 2010 and in the City of Halifax in 2010. Another pilot will take place this year in the City of Richmond, British Columbia. Diversion rates for each of these programs during their pilot phases have averaged higher than 75%. Since becoming permanent programs, the recycling rates have continued to improve.

Kim Jeffery’s insight into Extended Producer Responsibility

Nestlé Waters North America CEO Kim Jeffery shares invaluable insight into the future role of EPR. Read more about his proposal to build best-in-class recycling and educational programs in an interview that appeared on GreenBiz.com.

Read more about his proposal to build best-in-class recycling and educational programs.

Through carefully evaluating current recycling efforts, and looking for effective solutions, we can improve and expand this vital effort.

Future Recycling Success is Within Reach

America needs to band together now to address the recycling issue.

The materials and resources used in today's products are valuable, and with the right approach that allows for the collection of all reusable waste, more can be recaptured to reduce waste and ensure these materials are available for re-use in future products.

All of this makes us bullish on the prospects for rethinking recycling in the United States.

Learn more about our current recycling efforts