Key takeaways from the Resource Recycling Conference
Louisville, KY - November 2024
Recently, Upstream’s CEO Crystal Dreisbach and Local Reuse Manager Macy Zander attended the Resource Recycling Conference (RRC) in Louisville, KY. This was Upstream’s first appearance at this conference geared toward waste management professionals — particularly the recycling industry — and government staff. The event hosted over 300 attendees, with 23 presentations and panels running over three days. Upstream was involved in three of these, including two Upstream-organized panels fully dedicated to reuse, while Crystal was featured as one of the four speakers at the opening plenary, Women in Circularity.
Here are some of the key takeaways Crystal and Macy gathered from their experience at RRC.
One: Reuse is building on lessons learned from Recycling
At the session titled Who Decides What is Recyclable, all of the panelists lamented that fifty years in, consumers are still confused about recycling — what is and isn’t recyclable, what the various symbols mean, and what is allowed in their municipality. What’s more, brands are also confused, and, because they are in charge of their own labelling, this leads to a variety of misleading or hard to interpret symbols stamped on packaging.
Issues with contaminated recycling streams and shifting educational messaging can be solved by Extended Producer Responsibility (or EPR) policies that will help legislate and provide clear rules and harmonization around materials and labeling. The speakers agreed that we need policies clearly stating what is actually recyclable.
Fortunately, the burgeoning reuse industry is getting ahead of these problems faced by recycling, by establishing universal standards for labelling and a clear symbol to demarcate reusables. And EPR laws that mandate funding for reuse will strengthen the industry’s hold in the circular economy.
Two: Not all compostables are created equal
The Conversations in Compostable Packaging panel drew a clear distinction between fiber-based and bioplastic compostables. Fiber-based compostable packaging is practicably compostable in commercial compost facilities and is not considered a contaminant; whereas bioplastic packaging is problematic for commercial composters and is considered a contaminant. These are important distinctions to note for those particular cases when reuse is not a viable option.
Contamination is a huge problem for composting facilities, and much of the equipment they buy is specifically designed for removing contaminants. And unfortunately, that equipment (and the removal of the contaminants) also causes problems, often sorting out good organic matter along with the contaminants, which then gets sent to landfills, where it produces climate-warming methane.
While compostable plastics are not the biggest contamination source in the compost stream, many composting companies want their soil product to be certified as organic because it’s a better, more profitable product. However, they cannot receive Organic Certification if they process bioplastics, because the highly processed packaging is considered synthetic.
Three: Cities are key players in accelerating us to a more sustainable, circular future
In the panel Urban Leadership in Reuse: Policy and Strategic Action, we heard about the importance of cities as key players in accelerating us to a more sustainable, circular future. According to Elizabeth Balkan, Director of ReLoop North America, cities are “...centers of population, innovation and economic activity. Cities offer the scale and resources needed for systemic transformation and are uniquely positioned to drive the transition to a reuse economy.” She provided a vision of what’s possible with reuse by looking across the Atlantic to European cities.
Representatives from the nonprofit organization Perpetual shared about the four city-wide reuse systems they are working to build across the US (in Ann Arbor, MI; Galveston, TX; Hilo, HI; and Savannah, GA), highlighting the need for meaningful collaboration with local partners and stakeholders.
Representatives from the City of Seattle, which is at the forefront of interoperable reuse systems, shared their four “channels for action” across the city — Bring Your Own Cup campaign, financial assistance for business and schools, city-sponsored reuse services and systems, and celebrating partners who choose to reuse — while Zero Waste Sonoma shared the story of the recently completed Petaluma Cup Project.
Panelists highlighted what cities can do to set reuse up for success, which includes:
Collaborating across City departments and agencies
Making sure climate plans include scope 3 emissions
Offering incentives and securing funding for the necessary infrastructure
Promoting reuse culture by engaging communities in education and participation
Establishing enabling policies that promote reuse
Contracting for reuse services
For cities looking to dive into reuse, the advice is: Don’t wait. Just pick a starting point and begin, even if it’s a small step.
Four: There are opportunities for the recycling industry to adapt and evolve to include reuse
The panel Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities: Integrating Reuse Into Infrastructure and Services made the case that the recycling industry has a unique opportunity to adapt and evolve to include reuse. Besides having better environmental outcomes, reuse also complements and enhances traditional recycling efforts. The panel shared how haulers and Municipal Recycling Facilities (or MRFs) can develop new, stable revenue streams doing what they already do best: Collecting, transporting, sorting, processing, and redistributing materials – this time in the form of returnable, reusable packaging.
Both Cyclei and Don’t Waste Durham’s ReCirculation Project experimented with reusables in curbside pick up of recycling. Though an appealing streamlined solution, it was deemed to be too hard on the reusable packaging — so it seems, unless there are breakthroughs in research and development of materials, there will need to be a separate (“fourth”) bin for collecting reusables. Cyclei has been piloting this option with The Ecology Center.
Conclusion
All in all, the Resource Recycling Conference was an enriching event and provided a great opportunity to open up productive conversations between the recycling and reuse industries. We were glad to have such strong reuse representation present in a space focused on the circular economy.
