Let’s Build a Better Recycling System. Together.
For the past decade, The Recycling Partnership and our funding partners have been investing in the improvement of residential recycling systems, supporting meaningful change in the recyclability and circularity of product packaging, and creating innovative solutions for reaching our global climate and sustainability impact goals. The work we do is powered by our first-of-its-kind National Recycling Database — a consolidated source for trusted, localized information from over 9,000 U.S. recycling programs across more than 3,500 communities.
You Have Goals. We Have Solutions.
Discover how your membership and support will be put to great use.
“If you want to do more in the circularity space, and don’t yet know how, The Recycling Partnership can help guide you through that process and help you become a meaningful contributor to this vital issue.”
– Alex Schenk, Director of Global Environmental Policy at Walmart
Our Roadmap to Recycling Success
Our mission is to ensure everyone has access to the tools, resources, and support they need to achieve their recycling goals. With your help, we can accomplish all this and more by:
- Mobilizing funds to local communities, modernizing current recycling facilities, increasing material acceptance, and expanding access to recycling.
- Providing grant opportunities for delivering millions of new curbside recycling carts to households across the nation.
- Conducting research and developing campaigns to grow consumer trust in recycling programs, resulting in greater public participation and impact.
- Incubating and incorporating new solutions that address critical gaps in the recycling system by using the real-time, localized data & insights found in our National Recycling Database.
- Advocating for the accelerated adoption and implementation of effective state and national policies that ensure sustainable funding for all forms of recycling.
- Empowering community recycling programs with free technical assistance, field-tested best management practices, and free educational resources, found in our Recycling Program Solutions Hub.
Scalable Resources to Meet Your Needs
As a funding partner, your membership also means we provide you with tailored resources and expert guidance to help:
- Achieve maximum impact with your dollars. We offer a fully vetted portfolio of investment options, all of which help increase recyclability and recycling tonnage, and reduce greenhouse emissions.
- Harness the power of collective impact and collaboration with industry-leading companies committed to expanding the recycling of materials like polypropylene, PET, film and flexibles, and aluminum as a partner in our Materials Advancement Coalitions.
- Conduct thorough, system-wide assessments of packaging recyclability eligibility using the Circular Packaging Assessment Tool, and discover vital information about EPR regulations, end markets, bale exclusions, and more.
Additional Benefits as a Partner
When you support The Recycling Partnership, you also gain access to exclusive opportunities that can help change the world, literally.
- Grow your network alongside industry experts, policymakers, innovators, and corporate thought leaders.
- Gain access to exclusive, invitation-only events such as INC-4 (our fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee), Positioned for Scale, and our inaugural summit, Pivot: Scale to Impact.
- Receive data-driven and timely trends reporting on policies, innovations, and local insights that will influence state-level and national recyclability decisions.
- The potential to help guide our future by serving as a member of The Recycling Partnership’s Board of Directors.
Our Impact So Far
Through our funding and support, we’ve captured more than 1 billion pounds of new recycled material and diverted over 1.4 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering our environment. Our Community Cart Grant has provided over 2 million recycling carts to homes across the country. We’ve also supported more than 3,500 recycling programs nationwide, and we’ve awarded over 100 recycling facility grants.
Over the past 10 years, the work of our team and 100+ partners have proven that recycling programs really do work. They’re no longer just good intentions — recycling programs are the most viable plan we have for building a more circular future.
Our Commitment to Responsible Partnership
The Recycling Partnership is a purpose-driven organization building a better recycling system—one that delivers measurable benefits to communities, companies, and the environment. We solve recycling’s toughest challenges by modernizing the system, shaping policy, and engaging the public. Private sector engagement is essential, but not unconditional. Our principles make clear: in engaging with us every partner must put the public good first, commit to measurable outcomes, and align with systemic change.
- Mission Aligned, Always. Engagements must align with The Recycling Partnership’s mission, vision, and purpose of building a better recycling system by solving the toughest challenges, together.
- Systems-Focused, Public-First. All activities are designed to prove interventions that drive scalable outcomes. We prioritize the public interest and ensure every dollar drives system-level change.
- Data-Grounded, Results-Driven. We act on what the evidence shows and what experience has proven. Together, we aim for measurable results that move the system forward.
- Independent, Transparent, Accountable. The Partnership maintains independence, discloses corporate relationships, and ensures clarity about our role and responsibility. That’s how we maintain credibility, and impact.
Our Funding Partners
Join the Movement to Build a Better Recycling System