Recycling and Composting Accountability Act

Recycling and Composting Accountability Act

This bill establishes data collection and reporting requirements concerning composting and recycling programs.

Specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must issue several reports related to composting and recycling, including a report on the capability of the United States to implement a national composting strategy in order to reduce contamination rates for recycling.

The EPA must also

• inventory certain facilities that recycle residential materials and describe the materials that the facilities can process;
• collect data related to curbside and drop-off recycling and composting programs in order to establish a comprehensive baseline of data for the U.S. recycling system; and
• develop and disseminate best practices that states, local governments, and Indian tribes may use to enhance recycling and composting.

The EPA must also develop a metric for determining the proportion of recyclable materials in commercial and municipal waste streams that is being diverted from circular markets, which are markets that utilize industrial processes and economic activities to enable post-industrial and post-consumer materials used in those processes and activities to maintain their highest values for as long as possible. After developing the metric, the EPA must then study the proportion of recyclable materials in such waste streams that were diverted from those markets in the prior ten years.

Finally, the Government Accountability Office must report on the recycling practices of federal agencies.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov