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Recycling in America:
State vs. National Oversight Working Toward a Circular Infrastructure Bill Pregler
PHOTO: JAMES CANNON / COURTESY OF O-I
House Tip O’Neill often said, “All politics are local.” That might best describe our decades-long struggle with recycling programs in the United States. Despite growing public concern, today recycling in the U.S. has mostly remained a “legacy of old, localized infrastructure, tangled in regional politics and special interests.” It just might be time to move beyond and start thinking of a national, subsidized program. When it comes to glass, perhaps one of the biggest problems in building a recycling effort is that no reliable supply chain has been developed for the industry, among others. Without efficient, widespread and cost-effective programs there is little fiscal incentive for businesses to support, or local municipalities to develop, a must-have circular economy. The two must work in concert with a common goal for results to be achieved. In the meantime, the demand for recycled glass, called cullet, is still very strong, and bottle manufacturers will take all they can get. I spoke with Randy Burns, vice president of government affairs with Owens-Illinois, who also talked of growing worldwide shortages that he believes will be heightened by the coronavirus and the future need for billions of vaccine vials. He suggests here that glass recycling may soon have to evolve into a national agenda and could potentially even become a national security issue.
FORMER SPEAKER OF THE
60 October 2020 WBM
Some Background Since its public inception roughly 50 years ago, “recycling” was really nothing more than an effort to contain litter. Local civics events and county involvement were usually a feel-good panacea. Communities addressed the issue by holding school drives, picking up roadside trash and taking everything to the landfill. Since then, landfills have filled up, world populations have soared and thanks to modern, convenient packaging materials, we now have the floating Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex: the largest accumulation of ocean plastic, which stretches roughly 1 million square kilometers. The problem began in 1971 with the passage of voluntary bottle bills, meant to offer recycling incentives for glass through redemption values. (Back then there were no PET water bottles.) Unfortunately, only 10 states have ever participated. It turns out that two major industries objected to the concept because of the anticipated labyrinth of bookkeeping and logistics. Those were the booze producers and the milk lobbyists. Plenty of money and energy was successfully spent suggesting, among other things, that deposits on bottles were nothing more than a hidden tax by the government. Even worse, as of the writing of this article and the pandemic, only three of the original 10 states have continued with their respective programs. In sum, bottle bills have seemingly become a dead-end.