The Recycling 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 percent of packaging needs to be recyclable.
- Access: 100 percent of households need access to recycling from their home.
- Engagement: Residents need to fully engage in recycling with 90 percent of households confidently placing 80 percent of accepted recyclables into collection.
- Processing: Recycling facilities need to effectively process 95 percent 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, chief executive officer 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 percent of Republicans and more than 70 percent 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.
Published August 2026
