Report establishes a baseline for U.S. residential recycling as 1 in 5 Americans now live under packaging EPR laws.
WASHINGTON, DC (June 24, 2026) – Today, The Recycling Partnership (The Partnership) released the first installment of its 2026 State of Recycling Report, the nation’s leading resource for residential recycling data. Moving away from a traditional single-volume release, The Partnership plans to deliver timely, strategic data and insights throughout this next year to best support the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape.
Built upon The Partnership’s National Recycling Database, which tracks and analyzes live data from more than 9,000 community recycling programs across the country, Part One: Setting the Stage | Observations of the U.S. Residential Recycling System establishes a shared understanding and outlines five deeply interdependent requirements that must advance together for the system to succeed:
- Packaging: 100% of packaging needs to be recyclable.
- Access: 100% of households need access to recycling from their home.
- Engagement: Residents need to fully engage in recycling with 90% of households confidently placing 80% of accepted recyclables into collection.
- Processing: Recycling facilities need to effectively process 95% of the material.
- End markets: Recycling facilities need sufficient end markets.
“Strengthening our recycling system takes more than one breakthrough, one policy, or one actor stepping up,” said Keefe Harrison, CEO and Founder of The Recycling Partnership. “The first installment of the 2026 State of Recycling Report acknowledges the hard truth that voluntary commitments alone cannot deliver system-level change. It takes shared responsibility and consistent investment across all five requirements of the recycling system. When we make meaningful progress on each of those elements together, trust can be rebuilt as people see that what they put in the bin actually becomes new products.”
The report highlights a growing gap between what material is placed on the market and what the system can successfully recycle. Early data suggest the composition of the residential recycling stream continues to shift, with some material categories growing significantly while others decline. Detailed generation data will be presented in the second installment of the report.
Policy is beginning to address the gaps, with 1 in 5 Americans now living in states with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws. The Partnership’s research found that these laws have strong bipartisan support: More than 60% of Republicans and more than 70% of Democrats either strongly favor or somewhat favor this policy. However, it also asserts progress will take time as recycling infrastructure is no longer just an “environmental nice-to-have,” but a necessary strategy to protect domestic manufacturing and keep the U.S. economy competitive.
The next installment of the 2026 State of Recycling Report is set to be released in late summer. To read the latest and learn more about the data, visit https://recyclingpartnership.org/residential-recycling-report/
About The Recycling Partnership
The Recycling Partnership is the U.S. nonprofit solving recycling’s toughest challenges, together, by tackling problems no single company, community, or policymaker can fix alone. Since 2014, we’ve helped recover more than 2 billion pounds of new recyclables, avoided 2.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, delivered more than 2 million recycling carts to U.S. homes, and catalyzed $658 million in recycling system improvements. Learn more at recyclingpartnership.org.