Recycling infrastructure inequities in the South, sparsely populated states tied to lower income, less-college educated communities
A new University at Buffalo study finds that people in the United States generate similar amounts of plastic packaging waste regardless of income, education level or where they live.
Yet wealthier and more college-educated communities are much more likely to recycle soda bottles, takeout containers and other plastic packaging.
Why? It’s complicated, but the study, published today in Communications Sustainability, suggests that unequal access to recycling infrastructure plays a key role.
Researchers found that areas with higher incomes and education levels tend be closer to large-scale industrial recycling facilities, making recycling more convenient and accessible. In contrast, communities with less wealth and formal education often have fewer – if any – nearby facilities, which makes recycling more difficult and expensive.
“Our analysis suggests that recycling success is less shaped by plastic waste generation and more related to whether communities are given fair and equitable access to recycling systems,” says the study’s corresponding author John D. Atkinson, PhD, the Scott and Coleen Stevens Chair in Engineering Sustainability, and an associate professor in the UB Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.
Additional UB co-authors include Monica Miles, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Education; Aditya Vedantam, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Operations Management and Strategy; and Janet Z. Yang, PhD, professor in the Department of Communication.
The paper’s first author is Elham Mousania, who earned her PhD at UB in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering; she is now a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London.
Unequal access in the South, low population regions
For this study, the research team combined maps, census data, state-level recycling rates and other statistics to create a highly detailed geographical analysis of the contiguous U.S.
Researchers identified regions – examples include California and states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland – where plastic waste generation and plastic recycling rates are high.
They found people in these areas to be 30% to 55% wealthier, and 14% to 19% more college educated, compared to areas with limited access to recycling infrastructure. Importantly, most people in regions with high rates of plastic recycling live within 30 miles of industrial recycling facilities, which was used as a baseline distance for accessibility.
States where plastic waste generation is high, but plastic recycling rates are low include Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas.
These states have fewer industrial recycling facilities and they are generally less wealthy and less college-educated compared to regions with high recycling rates.
“Many people in the South and Southeast live in underserved recycling areas,” says Vedantam. “They generate similar amounts of plastic waste but recovery and processing facilities are far away, which can make recycling much less feasible.”
Other findings include:
- Sparsely populated states such as Montana and North Dakota have extremely limited recycling infrastructure. Wyoming has no large-scale plastic recycling facilities.
- Despite its large size, California has sufficient infrastructure to provide reasonable access to recycling facilities.
- States with “bottle bills” – laws requiring a small refundable deposit on recyclable beverage containers – have plastic packaging recycling rates that are twice the national average.
“Bottle bills show how public policy, when combined with infrastructure, can help improve recycling infrastructure access,” says Yang.
Mapping recycling infrastructure
The study notes that the U.S. generates the most plastic waste per person in the world, and that its plastic packaging recycling rate lags other nations.
For this study, the research team mapped the locations of all 419 major material recovery facilities on the U.S. mainland. These large-scale industrial facilities are where municipal recycling trucks, businesses and other large commercial waste generators drop off recyclables before they are processed. It does not include public drop off sites, such as transfer stations.
Researchers then calculated the average distance of nearly every building in the U.S. – roughly 130 million structures – to the closest material recovery facility. The research team also measured the distance of each material recovery facility to the nearest plastic reclaimer facility – where recyclables are converted back into commercial products.
They combined these distance measures with census data on income, education, and other socioeconomic factors.
“All these data reveal a powerful and unique look into plastic-justice inequities in access to recycling facilities across the contiguous United States,” says Miles.
Study limitations and what’s next
The study aligns with a social movement known as plastic justice, which treats plastic pollution as a human rights and environmental justice issue, researchers say.
They note limitations such as not accounting for capacity of material recovery facilities. The study also does not fully model regulatory, economic or political factors that might affect plastic recycling rates or the location of infrastructure.
To improve plastic recycling access, the research team suggests adding recycling infrastructure to high-waste regions that lack material recovery facilities, investing in underserved rural and lower-income areas, and expanding policies such as bottle bills.
