The Recycling Partnership (The Partnership) announced a Recycling Participation Fund, backed by Arconic, Milliken & Company Charitable Foundation, Niagara Cares, Procter & Gamble and Primo Brands to remove everyday barriers preventing people from participating in recycling and strengthen their confidence in local recycling programs. The fund will turn more than a decade of resident insight, field data, and real-world testing into stronger recycling outcomes.
“People want recycling to work, and they want to know their actions matter,” said Cody Marshall, chief recycling officer of The Recycling Partnership. “As the leading organization that has been on the ground gathering deep, scientific, system-level data on household recycling behavior, we are uniquely positioned to use this pivotal funding to accelerate the time it takes to achieve next-level recycling rates.”
As Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws are being implemented across seven U.S. states, there is growing pressure to meet ambitious recycling performance targets that cannot be achieved through infrastructure alone. Even in communities with established programs, more than 50 percent of recyclable material is lost in homes before it enters the system, making resident participation one of the most urgent and underdeveloped levers for progress. For producers, the fund offers a practical way to invest in the community-level conditions needed to improve recycling outcomes.
The Partnership has shown that progress is possible with a track record of over 200 behavior-focused projects. For example, a nearly $9 million investment in Michigan in partnership with MI EGLE boosted the state’s recycling rate from 14 percent to 25 percent, surpassing the national average. The Partnership has captured robust data from these projects, with long-standing support from the Milliken & Company Charitable Foundation, the Walmart Foundation and Niagara Cares, the philanthropic division of Niagara Bottling.
Through the new fund, The Partnership will leverage its research to progress understudied solutions and test new strategies to accelerate recycling participation in California, Texas, Arkansas and other priority regions with an initial 10 community deployments on the ground within the first year.
Published July 2026
