EPA announces historic recycling investment

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced the agency’s largest investment in recycling in more than 30 years.

A total investment of more than $105 million will be distributed among individual communities, states and territories, the EPA announced during a Sept. 12 press conference.

“We are proud to select 25 communities and every state and territory in the country to receive grants totaling more than $105 million under the two newly created Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling funding opportunities, which you may hear referred to as SWIFR grants,” EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said.

Grants for the 25 communities will total $73 million and range from $500,000 to $4 million in size, she added.

“Projects that will be supported by this investment include, for example, the purchase of new fleets of recycling collection vehicles and bins to provide curbside recycling services for communities currently lacking access, upgrades to material recovery facilities (MRFs) to reduce contamination, enhancements to composting and organics programs and infrastructure and construction of various types of facilities that improve recycling, composting and reuse infrastructure for materials like plastics and food waste,” McCabe said.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $275 million total from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2026 for grants authorized under the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act—the largest investment in recycling in 30 years. The recycling grants are supplemented with additional funding provided through EPA’s annual appropriations, the EPA says in a news release.

The agency has posted information about each of the SWIFR grant recipients.

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McCabe highlighted several projects during the announcement.

“In Bozeman, Montana, the city will use their Investing in America grant funding to build residential collection infrastructure to provide composting services for up to 7,000 households, which will encourage an increase in collection of organics and food waste while reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” she said. “In Baltimore, Maryland, the city will develop a solar-powered scalable composting facility co-located with the new east side transfer station. ... In Lucas County, Ohio, these funds will go toward the construction of a $16 million countywide single-stream materials recovery facility. This new facility, which will be constructed at the developed site of a former landfill, will create local jobs while allowing the community to process up to 35,000 tons of residential curbside recycling materials each year.”

States and territories will receive money to help them “improve post-consumer materials management programs through developing or updated solid waste management plans and strengthening data collection efforts,” she added.

Also speaking at the announcement was Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, who spoke of the economic benefits of the grants.

“Most people are less aware of how many jobs are created by recycling—recycling all kinds of products across the country—and also promoting economic opportunity,” he said. “With a recycling rate of 30 percent or 32 percent, however—that’s what’s been reported by the EPA—it is clear that we can do better.”

The EPA says the investment is part of a larger $500 billion investment in private sector manufacturing and clean energy that should help “create a manufacturing and innovation boom powered by good paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said his city will receive $4 million in grant funding that it will use to redevelop its North Transfer Station.

“We had already a waste transfer system on the south side,” he said. “But residents would have to drive across the entire city to get the services they need in order to meet the zero waste goals that we have, and this north transfer station will help so many Minneapolitans be part of being a much cleaner and sustainable city.”

EPA Administrator Michael Regan says recycling, along with climate change and drinking water quality, is among the nation’s “most pressing” environmental priorities.

“By investing in better recycling, EPA is deploying resources to provide recycling services across the country, including in disadvantaged communities, while preventing waste that contributes to the climate crisis, supporting local economies and creating good-paying jobs,” he says.