A new University at Buffalo study finds Americans generate similar amounts of plastic packaging waste, but wealthier, more educated communities have far better access to recycling. The research maps nationwide “plastic justice” gaps and points to policy and infrastructure fixes.
Americans across the country toss out similar amounts of plastic packaging, whether they live in a wealthy suburb or a rural town. But when it comes to recycling that waste, a new study finds that access, not personal behavior, is what really makes the difference.
Researchers at the University at Buffalo report that communities with higher incomes and more college-educated residents are far more likely to recycle plastic packaging such as soda bottles and takeout containers. The key reason, they say, is that these communities tend to be closer to large-scale recycling facilities, making it easier and cheaper to keep plastic out of landfills.
The study, published in Communications Sustainability, offers one of the most detailed looks yet at how geography and inequality shape the nation’s recycling system.
Lead author Elham Mousania, who completed her doctorate in civil, structural and environmental engineering at UB and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London, worked with an interdisciplinary team spanning engineering, operations management and communication.
The findings challenge the idea that low recycling rates are mainly about individual choices, according to corresponding author John D. Atkinson, the Scott and Coleen Stevens Chair in Engineering Sustainability and an associate professor in the UB Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.
“Our analysis suggests that recycling success is less shaped by plastic waste generation and more related to whether communities are given fair and equitable access to recycling systems,” Atkinson said in a news release.
To build a national picture, the team combined maps, U.S. Census data, state-level recycling rates and other statistics into a high-resolution geographic analysis of the contiguous United States.
They started by mapping all 419 major material recovery facilities on the U.S. mainland. These industrial plants are where municipal recycling trucks and large commercial waste generators drop off mixed recyclables to be sorted and processed. Public drop-off sites such as transfer stations were not included.
The researchers then calculated the distance from nearly every building in the country — about 130 million structures — to the nearest material recovery facility. They also measured how far each of those facilities is from the closest plastic reclaimer, where sorted plastics are turned back into commercial products.
Those distance measures were layered with data on income, education and other socioeconomic factors, as well as state recycling performance.
The patterns that emerged were stark.
Regions such as California and parts of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic — including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland — stood out for both high plastic waste generation and high recycling rates. Residents in these areas tend to be 30% to 55% wealthier and 14% to 19% more likely to have a college degree than people in regions with limited recycling infrastructure, the study found.
Crucially, most people in these high-performing regions live within about 30 miles of a major recycling facility, a distance the researchers used as a baseline for reasonable access.
By contrast, several Southern states generate a lot of plastic waste but recycle relatively little of it. Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas have fewer industrial recycling facilities and lower average income and education levels.
“Many people in the South and Southeast live in underserved recycling areas,” added co-author Aditya Vedantam, an associate professor in the UB Department of Operations Management and Strategy. “They generate similar amounts of plastic waste but recovery and processing facilities are far away, which can make recycling much less feasible.”
Sparse population can also mean sparse infrastructure. The study notes that states such as Montana and North Dakota have extremely limited access to large-scale recycling facilities. Wyoming has none.
On the other end of the spectrum, California — despite its size — has enough facilities to provide what the researchers describe as reasonable access for most residents.
The team also examined the impact of state policies, focusing on so-called bottle bills, which place a small refundable deposit on beverage containers to encourage recycling. States with these laws have plastic packaging recycling rates about twice the national average, the study reports.
“Bottle bills show how public policy, when combined with infrastructure, can help improve recycling infrastructure access,” added co-author Janet Z. Yang, a professor in the UB Department of Communication.
The work is rooted in a growing movement known as plastic justice, which views plastic pollution as both an environmental and human rights issue. From this perspective, it is not enough to ask people to recycle more; communities must also have fair access to the systems that make recycling possible.
Co-author Monica Miles, an assistant professor in the UB Department of Engineering Education, noted that the data-driven mapping offers a new way to see those inequities.
“All these data reveal a powerful and unique look into plastic-justice inequities in access to recycling facilities across the contiguous United States,” Miles said in the news release.
The United States generates more plastic waste per person than any other country, yet its plastic packaging recycling rate lags behind many peers. The UB team’s findings suggest that closing that gap will require more than public awareness campaigns.
The researchers outline several steps that could help. One is to add recycling infrastructure in high-waste regions that currently lack nearby material recovery facilities, particularly in the South and Southeast. Another is to invest in underserved rural and lower-income areas, where long distances to facilities make recycling costly and logistically challenging.
Expanding policies such as bottle bills could also boost recycling rates, especially when paired with new or upgraded facilities.
The authors acknowledge limitations to their work. The study does not account for the processing capacity of each facility, and it does not fully capture regulatory, economic or political factors that influence where recycling plants are built or how they operate.
Even so, the research offers a clear message for policymakers, industry and communities: if the goal is to recycle more plastic, the country must focus on who has access to the necessary infrastructure — and who does not.
By making recycling systems more equitable and convenient, the study suggests, the United States could move closer to a future where plastic waste is a shared responsibility, not an uneven burden.
Source: University at Buffalo, The State University of New York