and/or energy or disposed in landfills; municipalities often contract for the collection, processing, and disposal of MSW with private companies. It is estimated that 85–90% of the permitted MSW landfill disposal capacity in the United States is owned by private companies (Karidis, 2018).

The costs associated with the proper management of MSW and its recyclable content are currently borne by the residents and businesses of the community, either directly through service charges or indirectly through taxes. Thus, MSW management services can be viewed as public utility services—similar to electricity, water, wastewater treatment, and stormwater management—that are vital to the ongoing well-being of the community. In the United States, managing MSW involves significant costs for the infrastructure, labor, and technology required for various disposal methods. As of 2018, the country generated approximately 292 million tons of MSW each year, with the majority going to landfills that are costly to build, operate, and maintain, especially as space becomes limited (EPA, 2020). Recycling and composting programs, which divert around 32 percent of MSW, also carry high expenses due to the collection, sorting, and processing needed to reclaim materials such as paper, metals, plastics, and glass (EPA, 2020). Separate organic waste processing adds additional costs for facilities that handle biodegradable waste and turn it into valuable products, a process that requires specialized handling and transportation. Waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities, which process about 12 percent of MSW, are among the most expensive due to high technology and operational costs, although they offset some expenses by generating electricity (EPA, 2020). These combined costs highlight the financial investment required to manage waste sustainably and reduce environmental impacts, with the expense often covered by a combination of taxpayer funds, fees, and public–private partnerships.

These costs have changed over time. In the early 1990s, EPA promulgated new regulations for the disposal of MSW in landfills (42 U.S. Code §§ 6941–6949a). Referred to as “Subtitle D” regulations, they were designed to minimize the environmental impacts of landfill disposal by requiring that composite liners be installed at the bottom of any new landfill to prevent leachate from leaking and contaminating the groundwater below. Subtitle D regulations also placed new requirements on the siting and operation of landfills. These requirements significantly added to the costs and technical expertise required to design, operate, and maintain landfills. These costs resulted in the decision of many cities and counties to get out of the landfill business and instead rely on privately owned regional landfills for the disposal of their wastes.

Alongside the implementation of Subtitle D landfill regulations, EPA and many state governments adopted MSW recycling goals for local governments to achieve in the management of the MSW generated by their communities. A key rationale for these goals was to conserve Subtitle D landfill capacity, which had become relatively expensive because of the liner requirements and other regulations. Many of these goals were stated in terms of an MSW recycling rate, calculated as the total weight of recycled MSW over the total weight of generated MSW (EPA, 2020). The definition of recycling that was commonly accepted during this time included the composting of yard waste and other MSW, as well as materials and products used in the manufacturing and packaging of consumer goods. However, because composting is a biological process that converts organic materials, it is considered by some to be a recovery process rather than a recycling process.

Although recycling advocates in the 1990s argued that sale of recyclable materials and cost savings from diverting materials from landfills could cover costs of the recycling of MSW, this argument has fallen short in practice. As a result, local governments are currently responsible for covering the added costs associated with the recycling of MSW as opposed to its disposal in landfills. The committee for this study was convened in part to determine the role that the federal government, states, and private companies should each play in covering the additional direct costs associated with the recycling of MSW versus its landfill disposal. Covering these costs acknowledges the higher indirect social and environmental costs associated with landfill disposal rather than recycling that portion of MSW.

1.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF RECYCLING

Solving contemporary challenges of MSW recycling programs is a critical mission for policymakers in the coming years. Policy choices across levels of governments will influence and impact the actors

across the MSW management system. Evidence-based decisions regarding these choices can ensure an appropriate balance of the tradeoffs, helping to ensure that MSW recycling programs operate in a manner that is both economically and environmentally sound.

As this report lays out in further detail, well-designed and supported MSW recycling programs hold many benefits. In particular, recycling decreases reliance on non-renewable resources and virgin materials. Extending the useful lifespan of materials can avoid greenhouse gas emissions associated with the extraction of non-renewable virgin materials. While recycling and the remanufacture of materials have greenhouse gas emissions costs, well-designed recycling programs and the use of renewable energy sources in remanufacturing process can lead to an overall reduction in emissions. These concepts are explored further in Chapters 3 and 7 of this report.

In addition to their environmental benefits, recycling programs can lead to measurable economic gains. Recycling programs and the circular economies they enable create jobs, promote business development, and provide further positive social impacts for communities across the country. These concepts are further discussed in Chapters 3 and 6.

1.3 MSW RECYCLING COSTS AND THE ROLE OF PUBLIC POLICY

Before exploring specific challenges recycling programs encounter in various regions and materials, it is crucial to understand the role of costs and public policies. Markets alone do not provide the necessary incentives or information for households, businesses, or local governments to engage in effective recycling practices. Local, state, or federal government intervention through public policy can significantly improve the efficiency, affordability, and accessibility of recycling initiatives.

For instance, local governments are involved in waste collection not just for economic efficiency but also to maintain public health and cleanliness for the community’s benefit. Without this service, some people might avoid disposal costs by dumping waste illegally, which creates broader environmental and health risks. While curbside waste collection is essential, it requires considerable public funding. Recycling helps reduce waste disposal costs by diverting materials away from landfills, yet recycling programs themselves are costly to run, involving collection, sorting, and processing of materials. Here, public policy can help balance costs by funding and supporting recycling efforts, especially where they benefit the community overall.

Government support can also make both landfills and recycling more cost-effective through “economies of scale.” Processing plants, known as materials recovery facilities (MRFs), may need large volumes of recyclable material to be cost-efficient, which can require a significant initial investment in infrastructure. Government policy can make it possible to build and run these large facilities by centralizing services, reducing the cost per ton of recycled material, and allowing local programs to access the savings. Appropriate public policy can further reduce costs by creating streamlined markets for selling recycled goods, which helps make recycling programs financially sustainable.

Another area where public policy plays a critical role is in managing “external costs,” where a sales contract between two parties in an exchange does not account for indirect costs on third parties, such as noise, traffic, and pollution. For instance, disposal of waste at a landfill may produce leachate that affects groundwater, produces odors, and generates greenhouse gases that impact entire communities, not just individual users or owners of the landfill. Policies, such as regulations on landfill emissions and incentives for recycling, can help reduce these external costs and improve economic efficiency. This report emphasizes that decisions and policies about recycling can be analyzed and optimized only in the context of the broader waste management system that includes alternatives to recycling, such as landfill disposal, composting, and use of WTE plants.

Recycling also helps to lessen environmental damage from mining and raw material extraction, which impose long-term costs on society. Government policy can help reduce these environmental costs of mining and materials extraction by providing subsidies or incentives to encourage recycling, which can reduce new materials extraction and its impact on natural resources. Thus, this report emphasizes that analysis of recycling policy needs to consider not only the broader waste management system (landfill disposal,

composting, and WTE), but a circular economy that includes decisions and policies about mining, other extraction, product design for recyclability, repair, and reuse, along with recycling (Fullerton, 2025; Stahel, 2016).

Finally, public policies also can ensure that recycling efforts are fair and accessible to all communities. Well-designed policies can help ensure that the costs of recycling and waste management does not fall unevenly on different groups and that everyone benefits from cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable waste practices.

This report refers to these cost and policy issues as it examines the specific challenges and solutions for recycling across the United States, giving context to the discussions in later chapters.

1.4 STUDY SCOPE AND APPROACH

Recognizing the growing challenges in sustainable MSW recycling programs, Congress called on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene an ad hoc committee to study the programmatic and economic costs of these programs and to make recommendations on policy options for effective funding and incentives for recycling. The full statement of task can be found in Box 1-1. This report represents the final report of that committee.

Note that the committee was not tasked with exploring or making recommendations with respect to general waste management or diversion related to “reduce” and “reuse” efforts in the traditional “3R” framework. The committee was tasked specifically to focus on the policies and pathways that relate to materials for recycling—while bearing in mind that policy recommendations about recycling must depend on problems with alternatives to recycling listed above. In addition, the committee provides policy options as a way to effectively operationalize its recommendations.

The committee understood its task as primarily concerning the policies and systems in place that relate to the collection, sorting, processing, transport, and sale of recyclable materials, especially those that are traditionally processed in MRFs (although, the committee notes that expansion to other materials such as textiles and food waste would be possible and desirable). The committee considered recycling and composting as distinct but related components of MSW management. While C&D and hazardous waste are outside the study scope, the committee considered policies around disposal of specific materials, such as lithium-ion batteries, that often enter typical recycling processes, as they impact the direct (i.e., monetary) costs of recycling programs. Additionally, given the intertwined nature of the waste and recycling system

and associated policies, the committee considered the policies and approaches that impact in-scope materials, even if they also relate to out-of-scope materials. For example, the committee detailed extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies in this report as relevant to in-scope materials, even though many EPR frameworks also relate to out-of-scope materials (e.g., household hazardous waste).

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

This report describes the results of the committee’s review and study of the information available regarding its statement of task. Chapter 2 presents the MSW management and recycling ecosystem from a systems perspective. Chapter 3 explores challenges with recycling programs and how policy can address those challenges. Chapter 4 provides an overview of the various costs and financing options available for recycling programs, and Chapter 5 reviews the types of materials commonly recycled and the markets involved in recycled materials. Chapter 6 details the social and behavioral considerations that are relevant for recycling programs. Finally, in Chapter 7, the committee identifies the environmental impacts of recycling.

REFERENCES