One of the most recycled products in the United States is paper materials. Under paper materials we see a broad range of products, such as regular office paper, newspapers, cardboard, and beverage cartons (Paper and Paperboard). In 2018, out of the 67,390 tons of paper produced, we recycled 45,970 tons of it (Paper and Paperboard). This gives us a recycling rate of 68.2%. This is much higher than the 24% recycling rate that we see for MSW. Not only that, but paper makes up a substantial part of the total MSW generated, sitting at 23.1% in 2018 (Paper and Paperboard). However, despite this high percentage, the US still lags behind many other developed countries when it comes to recycling rates. The following graph shows recycling rates for paper in the European Union for 2017 (Coppola, 2020).

Notice how the majority of countries in the EU perform better than the US, and quite a few by substantial margins.

Recycling paper has a lot of benefits. For a ton of recycled paper, we can save 17 trees. When all processing has been done, it also gives savings of 64% in energy, 58% in water, and results in 60 pounds less of air pollution (Paper Recycling Facts).

As a country, we can learn a lot from paper’s high recycling rate. Paper and plastic both have a lot of single use products, but plastic has a much lower recycling rate than paper, sitting at just 19.5% in 2015 (Ritchie & Roser, 2018). While I do not have evidence to support this, I think that one reason that paper is recycled more frequently is because it is harder to place large, cardboard boxes into trash bags. As a result, throwing away cardboard becomes inconvenient, thus making people more likely to recycle. Therefore, a possible strategy to increase recycling rates of other materials would be to make recycling of the material easier than discarding the material. This could be done by either making recycling easier to access or designing to material so that discarding it is more difficult.

References

(n.d.) Paper and Paperboard: Material-Specific Data. US EPA. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/paper-and-paperboard-material-specific-data

Coppola, D. (2020, September 11) Recycling rate of paper and cardboard packaging waste in the European Union in 2017, by country. Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033512/recycling-rate-of-paper-and-cardboard-packaging-waste-in-the-eu-by-country/

(n.d.) Paper Recycling Facts. University of Southern Indiana. Retrieved from https://www.usi.edu/recycle/paper-recycling-facts/

Ritchie, H., Roser, M. (2018, September). Plastic Pollution. Our World In Data. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#global-plastic-fate