The U.S. UBC recycling rate dropped to 49.4 percent in 2016, which is its lowest level in years.

Waste360 Staff, Staff

November 15, 2017

1 Min Read
U.S. UBC Recycling Drops to 49.4% in 2016

The U.S. UBC recycling rate dropped to 49.4 percent in 2016, which is its lowest level in years. The consumer recycling rate for aluminum cans was also down from 54.5 percent a year earlier, which is the lowest percentage since at least 2009.

The “industry recycling rate,” which includes imported and exported cans as well as domestic material, also fell to 63.9 percent, which is down slightly from 64.3 percent in 2015.

Resource Recycling has more:

The U.S. UBC recycling rate declined to 49.4 percent in 2016, its lowest level in years.

The consumer recycling rate for aluminum cans was down from 54.5 percent a year earlier. The 2016 number equates to 1.23 billion pounds of cans recycled out of nearly 2.5 billion pounds available for recycling. It was announced in the Aluminum Association’s annual key performance indicators report.

It was the second consecutive year of decline for the consumer rate and the lowest percentage since at least 2009. The closest rate during that eight-year period was in 2010, when consumer UBC recycling dropped was at 49.7 percent, according to previous year reports. In the following years, it rose steadily and spiked in 2014, before falling slightly in 2015 and more substantially in 2016.

Read the full story here.

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