The United States’ recycling sector has been undergoing scrutiny. With China and much of SE Asia drastically decreasing their acceptance of our recyclables, recycled materials markets have been tumultuous and some cities have even curtailed their recycling services. However, while there has been short term pain, the market contraction and heightened attention on recycling actually represents an opportunity. An opportunity to encourage domestic economic development through the creation of manufacturing businesses utilizing “waste” as a resource.

Why?

The economic rationale for viewing our waste as a resource recovery opportunity is clear. Material that is sent to landfills represents not only the lost financial value of the material itself but also the lost revenue from potential economic opportunities that could have utilized this waste material as feedstock. For example, the New Mexico Recycling Coalition states that, “in 2013 New Mexicans spent over $51 million dollars to bury over $168 million dollars worth of recyclable materials.” Furthermore, recycling and reuse are estimated to create between 9 to 30 times more jobs as compared with landfilling and incineration.

But how do we support the growth of the recycling and recovered materials industries domestically? The key is to encourage DEMAND for recycled materials and challenge our reliance on virgin resource use.

How?

Both the public and private sector have an essential role to play in supporting the development of domestic markets for recovered material. Across the United States, there are a myriad of programs and entrepreneurs that have been successfully working towards this goal. These initiatives were highlighted in the recently published report: Closing the Material Loop: How Innovators from the Public and Private Sector are Creating Value from Waste. The report shares over 20 interviews and case studies from those who are on the front lines of successfully building a circular materials economy and supporting markets for recovered materials.

The Public Sector

The Public Sector plays an integral role in the development of recovered materials markets. Whether through actions such as fostering awareness of the financial value found within “waste” to the local community, offering business support services including loans or permitting assistance to manufacturers that utilize “waste” as feedstock, or developing eco-parks and manufacturing hubs built around local landfill; local governments can accelerate the creation of recovered material economies.

Some important trends in how the public sector is building support for resource recovery and utilization include:

1. Making the Economic Argument

All of the public sector interviewees spoke to the importance of framing “waste” in terms of economic value. This shift from materials management activities being traditionally seen as a cost center to positioning these activities in an economic development and revenue generation light has arguably helped these programs gain greater buy-in from both the community at large and within their respective municipalities or states.

2. Embracing Entrepreneurs and Local Experts

Several featured cities and states understood that existing solutions for the processing of “waste” and end-markets for recovered materials may not currently exist. Thus, they have and continue to pro-actively pitch their materials to the entrepreneurial, business, non-profit, and academic community. In some cases, cities are even developing start-up acceleration programs to foster scalable solutions.

3. Breaking Down Silos Internally

As programs are developed to support the utilization of recovered materials, proper communication and coordination between different city departments (namely Economic Development and Resource Recovery/Waste Management) is integral to ensuring there is no duplication of efforts as well as to lay a framework for strategic coordination. Some of the featured cities have even developed joint funding for a cross-departmental role or for the creation of an entirely new Circular Economy department. The Procurement, Building, and Workforce Development departments were also cited by interviewees as being important to include in the development of recovered materials strategies.

The Private Sector-Partnerships and Collaborations

The need for more partnerships and industry collaborations to help scale resource recovery and utilization efforts is obvious. Very rarely does one business have the expertise to act as the collector, processor, product manufacturer, and end-market retailer for a recovered material while doing so profitably at scale. But who are the right partners? What is the right incentive and cost structure?

Some key trends from private sector collaborations include the following:

1. Invest in Long Term Relationships

The featured partnerships were all initiated by companies that already had pre-existing relationships with one another. Partners had already established a common understanding of how their respective organizations’ missions were in alignment and had built a shared sense of trust from the results of past outcomes. In addition, the nature of these partnerships was focused on long-term engagement as opposed to being one-off or transactional.

2. Costs are Important . . .In the Long Run

Cost parity was an important issue mentioned by all interviewees. The goal for each partnership was to create a truly financially sustainable program that would result in cost-savings in the long term. Within those parameters, there was the understanding that reaching true efficiency and scale would take time, especially in the case of the development of new materials and supply chains. These concerns were built into project timelines to allow for a realistic understanding that cost-parity may not be achieved immediately.

3. Engage with Internal Stakeholders

While the sustainability department may be leading the program externally, for collaborations with external partners to succeed, engaging internal departments and employees was cited by interviewees as being a critical component of success. Assuaging internal departments’ fears around material quality and costs were cited as ways to help build support for testing out new supply chains and material sources.

Conclusion

Supporting the growth of recovered materials markets and products made from “waste” presents a clear path forward to building a more resilient economy that is not reliant on imports of virgin materials while also supporting the growth of the domestic manufacturing and recycling sector. Growth in employment and tax revenue is inherently local. And from a macro perspective, as global consumer spending is projected to almost double to $64 trillion by 20301, there is an urgency to create new methods of production that can fulfill projected consumer demand while staying within planetary resource constraints. The time is now to view WASTE as a RESOURCE. 

Closing the Material Loop: How Innovators from the Public and Private Sector are Creating Value from Waste

Featured public sector and non-profit organizations included in the report are Cal Recycle, the City of Austin, the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment, Kent County, the City of Phoenix, the Southeast Recycling Development Council, Lonely Whale, NextWave, the Resource Solutions Innovation Network, and the US Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Featured private sector organizations included in the report are Aquafil, the Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Best Buy, Circular Solutions Advisors, Dell, Ecoculture Manufacturing Corp, Ecologic Brands, ECOR, ERI, HP, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Oxnard Pallet Company, UNIFI, Up Cycle it Now, and The Super Bowl.

To access the full report, please refer to https://www.upcyclersnetwork.org/resources/.

Upcoming Webinar:

Oct 17th — The Public Sector-Building the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem around Resource Recovery featuring the City of Austin, the State of Colorado, the Resource Innovation Solutions Network, and the City of Phoenix. RSVP here.

About the Upcyclers Network

The Upcyclers Network exists to support the creation of a sustainable global economy. A new economy that is free from non-renewable virgin resource use and understands that waste is simply a resource out of place.

Together, we can challenge our current production system that is reliant on environmental destruction. By supporting businesses and organizations who utilize recycled, recovered, and discarded materials as feedstock, we will create a new understanding of the value within our “waste.” This appreciation will lay the foundation for a circular economy that will benefit both our economy and our planet.

Please join us in creating a greener future at www.upcyclersnetwork.org.

References

1 https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-unprecedented-expansion-of-the-global-middle-class-2/

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Gina Lee
Gina Lee is the Founder of Circular CoLab, an organization dedicated to empowering the adoption of the Circular Economy. She is the author of The State of the Circular Economy in America, the first United States focused Circular Economy landscape study which analyzes over 200 Circular Economy initiatives. Gina has over 15 years of experience working in Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Impact in the United States, China, and Germany. Her past roles include overseeing partnerships with Fortune 500 corporations and top-tier business schools for the Aspen Institute, working with the Schwarz Group in materials management, and leading programming and corporate relations for Mercy Corps Beijing. She is skilled in engaging with organizations from across the policy, government and private sector and has managed workshops and pilot programs with organizations including TATA, the American Sustainable Business Council, TEDxLA, and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. Gina has a BA in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She believes that social entrepreneurs will change the world and is a judge for the Echoing Green Fellowship Program and a Mentor for the Mentor Capital Network.