The Recycling Participation Fund

Scaled Action to Increase Recycling Rates Across the U.S.

An investment model that helps communities increase recycling participation and accelerate progress toward recycling rate goals.

Become a Partner

The Public Wants Recycling to Work Better

Communities and producers face growing pressure to meet ambitious recycling rate targets under emerging EPR legislation. Reaching those goals requires faster, collective action across the recycling value chain. The challenge is no longer just access to recycling, but participation. Significant amounts of recyclable materials are still lost at the household level, ending up in landfills or the solid waste stream rather than re-entering the system as new packaging and products.

The Recycling Participation Fund builds on The Partnership’s deep track record of helping communities improve recycling participation, reduce contamination, and increase material capture. Our work has shown that when communities have the right insights, investment, and implementation support, recycling rates improve and stay improved.

Advancing the Next Generation of Recycling Engagement Strategies

The Recycling Participation Fund evaluates both proven and emerging engagement approaches to identify what delivers measurable improvements in participation and material capture. Rather than relying on assumptions, each deployment helps generate data, insights, and implementation learnings that can be refined and scaled.

Proven Approaches

Emerging Strategies

Understudied Opportunities

The Ingredients That Drive Recycling Participation

The Recycling Participation Fund’s framework focuses on four key ingredients that help make recycling easier, more meaningful, and more actionable.

ACCESS

Provide convenient recycling opportunities for residents across housing types and geographies.

EASE

Deliver simple instructions, physical tools, and guidance that reduce confusion and make participation feel automatic.

APPEAL

Create messaging and experiences that feel relevant, motivating, and culturally authentic.

NORM

Demonstrate that recycling is shared, visible, and supported by neighbors, communities, brands, and leaders.

Featured Investment

How Michigan Increased Its Recycling Rate from 14% to 25%

Since 2019, collaboration with The Partnership has helped more than 200 Michigan communities expand access, strengthen engagement, and improve recycling performance statewide.
The state’s recycling rate increased from 14% to 25% between 2019 and 2025, demonstrating how sustained investment and people-centered solutions can drive measurable progress, reduce landfill dependence, and lower emissions across the solid waste system.

man waving with a truck filled with stacked recycling carts behind him

How Your Investment Works

The Recycling Participation Fund accelerates recycling progress through four connected strategies designed to test, prove, and scale effective participation solutions across the recycling program ecosystem.

Transform Resident Insights into Deployable Strategies

Using the Recycling Confidence Index, focus groups, resident surveys, and community research, the Recycling Participation Fund identifies the barriers, motivations, and behaviors shaping recycling participation today. These insights are translated into omni-channel engagement strategies that communities can deploy in the real world, informing everything from recycling bin placement and labeling to materials recovery facility operations.

Deploy Community Interventions

The Recycling Participation Fund supports on-the-ground community deployments designed to remove everyday barriers to recycling participation and improve resident recycling experiences across single-family and multifamily housing.

Deliver Insights and Storytelling

The Recycling Participation Fund captures what works through case studies, measurable proof points, and implementation learnings that help communities and partners adopt successful approaches faster, and connect recycling program progress to broader sustainability and circular economy goals.

Scale Knowledge Across the Recycling System

Through workshops, webinars, partner convenings, EPR collaboration, and the Community Engagement Hub, the Recycling Participation Fund helps distribute proven strategies across communities, states, and supply chains.

Learn About The Fund

The Recycling Participation Fund is designed to help the entire recycling value chain move faster together. We’re bringing together funders, brands, communities, and implementation partners committed to improving recycling performance nationwide.

Get More Info

Ready to Invest in Change?

Anchor funders are investing because meaningful recycling progress requires more than awareness alone. It requires sustained investment in community solutions, resident engagement, and scalable implementation.

Become a Funder