COMMENTARY: Bad recycling math is driving packaging policy

COMMENTARY: Bad recycling math is driving packaging policy By Michael Graham InsideSources.com July 25, 2026 - 9:00 pm “Rinsing retired tuna cans and tying up newspapers whitethorn marque you consciousness virtuous, but it’s a discarded of clip and money, a discarded of quality and earthy resources.” So said New York Times subject writer John Tierney successful his now-legendary 1996 nonfiction “Recycling Is Garbage.” Tierney was aggravated implicit Americans being misled astir what truly happened erstwhile they took the clip and disbursal to recycle. Much of their effort didn’t trim c emissions oregon prevention immoderate trees. Thirty years later, the information proceed to beryllium Tierney right. And yet, each day, millions of Americans flatten Amazon boxes, spot them successful curbside recycling bins, and presume they’re helping prevention the world. That’s due to the fact that the insubstantial industry’s largest commercialized relation promoted cardboard arsenic 1 of America’s top biology occurrence stories, repeatedly touting recycling rates supra 90 percent. But, arsenic has happened crossed the remainder of the recycling industry, the mathematics turned retired to beryllium bogus. After revising its methodology, the American Forest &Paper Association revealed that it had overstated its 2022 cardboard recycling complaint by 25 percent points, to 93.6 percent. The manufacture present acknowledges that one-fourth to one-third of corrugated cardboard disposable for betterment is not recycled. Overall insubstantial recycling rates are little still, falling to 60 percent from 64 percent. “Consumers judge the recycling of cardboard is simply a fixed erstwhile it’s not,” said Sarah E. Hunt, president and CEO of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy. “At a planetary scale, candidly, excessively overmuch cardboard winds up successful landfills.” “If you propulsion that Amazon container successful the recycling bin, it’s fundamentally a coin flip connected if it volition beryllium recycled,” said 1 packaging advisor acquainted with the issue. “It surely could be, but it’s acold from a guarantee.” That revision raises questions astur the industry’s years-long selling run and whether consumers and policymakers were fixed an overly optimistic representation of cardboard recycling. The alteration matters due to the fact that Americans person billions of corrugated shipping boxes annually. Industry campaigns specified arsenic the insubstantial association’s Better Practices, Better Planet 2030 diagnostic messages to consumers specified arsenic “Yes, insubstantial gets recycled!” that pb consumers to judge that putting a container successful the recycling bin means it volition go different insubstantial product. The industry’s message, critics say, is that cardboard recycling is virtually automatic. AF&PA defended its process and committedness to transparency. “The updated methodology reflects that continuous-improvement process and provides further discourse for knowing nationalist insubstantial and cardboard recycling trends,” said Abigail Sztein, AF&PA’s enforcement manager of recovered fiber. “What remains wide is that insubstantial recycling works: 46 cardinal tons of insubstantial was recycled successful the United States successful some 2023 and 2024, and our manufacture continues investing successful projects that enactment much recycled insubstantial into caller products.” That mentation is improbable to fulfill critics who question wherefore consumers, retailers and policymakers were encouraged to trust connected recycling figures exceeding 90 percent for truthful galore years erstwhile those figures were already suspect. And past there’s the question raised by Tierney: Is recycling astur redeeming the satellite oregon patting yourself connected the back? What person you accomplished erstwhile you unit a engaged ma chasing her kids done the market store to springiness up her integrative buying container and power to paper, different than making her beingness a small harder? Plastic buying bags person a little carbon-dioxide footprint than insubstantial connected a single-use ground — they instrumentality acod little vigor to nutrient and, being six to 10 times lighter, make a fraction of the proscription emissions. Seven trucks of insubstantial bags adjacent 1 motortruck of integrative bags. Recycling cardboard requires adjacent much trucks and much mill processing, which means much c emissions. Or, enactment different way, sending trucks and trains to determination mounds of cardboard truthful it tin beryllium processed astatine a mill takes a batch of gasoline, diesel substance and electricity. Is the nett payment worthy the effort? Calvin Lakhan of York University’s Circular Innovation Hub has argued that nationalist discussions often absorption connected postulation and information portion overlooking what yet happens to materials aft they participate the recycling system. “It’s important to retrieve that what we enactment successful the recycling bin is irrelevant, it’s what happens aft that matters most,” Lakhan wrote. That favoritism has go progressively important arsenic insubstantial and integrative vie for marketplace stock successful packaging. Paper’s strongest biology selling constituent has been its recycling story, and recycling statistic are routinely cited successful legislative debates implicit packaging regulations, procurement standards and extended shaper work laws. “Assuming that each packaging is recycled guides policymakers toward policies that are ineffective,” said Hunt of the Rainey Center. “Policymakers merit close facts to guarantee our laws bespeak reality.” Michael Graham is the managing exertion astatine InsideSources.com.