Sustainability

Creating a sustainable future, through increasing recyclability and reimagining the recycling system.

Sustainability

Enhancing Packaging Sustainability

The CPG industry plays a crucial role in creating a more sustainable future through packaging innovation and increasing recyclability.

All of the 25-largest CPG companies have made commitments to increasing recyclable content, minimizing packaging or reusing material. Eighty percent of those companies are working toward fully recyclable packaging for all of their products by 2030 at the latest.

Packaging with the Planet in Mind

Fixing America's Recycling System

Lasting Change

Packaging with the Planet in Mind

Few industries adapt as quickly to consumer wants and needs as CPG. Consumer preference coupled with the industry’s desire to do the right thing has led to innovation in the way that CPG companies offer sustainable products.

Fixing America’s Recycling System

Consumers are victims of a broken system that has led to confusion, contamination and the breakdown of America’s recycling infrastructure.

Lasting Change

A sustainable future demands that every stakeholder be part of a holistic and honest assessment of our recycling system if we want to create meaningful and lasting change.

Crushed plastic bottles heap

Achieving America’s Recycling Future

Achieving America’s Recycling Future is the first policy platform released by the Consumer Brands Association, representing the views of the CPG industry, and focuses on finding scalable solutions to address the underlying issues in the recycling and recovery system.

our approach

RLC Blueprint Social Set (16)

Blueprint for America’s Recycling System

The Consumer Brands Association’s Recycling Leadership Council (RLC) unites a diverse group of stakeholders from consumer-facing industries and the packaging and recycling ecosystem to build a public policy framework to fundamentally reimagine the recycling system.

In February 2021, the RLC released the Blueprint for America’s Recycling System, its vision for ambitious federal policy action which recommends scalable solutions for a modern and standardized recycling system across the country.

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Young african american man filling box with waste paper

Set up for Failure

How the Fragmented Approach to Recycling Fails Consumers and the Environment

Achieving uniformity in recycling definitions is the first and most critical step in the process of reimagining the American system — the true gateway to meaningful change.

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See What’s New

Consumer Brands Statement on New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act’s Defeat

Press Release

Consumer Brands Statement on New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act’s Defeat

Consumer Brands Statement on the Passage of New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act

Press Release

Consumer Brands Statement on the Passage of New York’s Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act

Consumer Brands Statement on the Minnesota Legislature Passing the Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act

Press Release

Consumer Brands Statement on the Minnesota Legislature Passing the Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act

Fixing America’s Recycling System

There is deep confusion about how and what to recycle, evidence of a broken system where change is imperative.

92%

of Americans

feel that they know their local recycling rules, but fewer than six-in-ten report researching them.

40%

of Americans

admit tossing “maybes” into the recycling bin, increasing contamination and the chance that materials heads to the landfill instead.

4%

of Americans

say that they are not confused by recycling rules.

The Potential of National Standards

save-our-seas

Consumer Brands Association research reveals that Americans want the government to lead on a solution to the plastic and packaging waste crisis.

Ninety-three percent of Americans feel that national standards will alleviate the confusion caused by the current morass of recycling rules, stemming from nearly 10,000 individual systems.

The majority of Americans believe that the federal government should make solving the recycling crisis the next “moon shot.” Without substantial change driven by every stakeholder — CPG companies, NGOs, government officials and even consumers — recycling in America will continue to slowly erode.

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Americans Want a Recycling ‘Moon Shot’

77%

of Americans

believe that the federal government should tackle plastic and packaging waste as its next “moon shot.”

93%

of Americans

believe that national standards will alleviate recycling confusion.

95%

of Americans

believe that they would be helped by labeling packaging with information on how to properly recycle containers.

Playing a Leading Role in Uniting Stakeholders

No one industry can solve the packaging waste crisis alone. It will take collaboration across multiple sectors to create meaningful change.

Trash for recycle and reduce ecology environment

Recycling Leadership Council

The Consumer Brands Association’s Recycling Leadership Council unites critical stakeholders across the packaging ecosystem to build the public policy foundation for a 21st Century recycling system in the United States.

Research & Resources

Recycling by the Numbers

Fact Sheet

Recycling by the Numbers

Recycling Moon Shot Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet

Recycling Moon Shot Fact Sheet