Reimagining the Bottle Bill: a new report by Reloop North America

On 15 March 2022, Reloop North America released the new report, Reimagining the Bottle Bill – an alternative to the present recycling system in 5 northeast states in the United States. Implemented, it could fundamentally change our environmental trajectory. How will this happen? Through a modernized Deposit Return System. A modernized DRS is accessible and accountable,…

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Beyond Recycling: Policy to Achieve Circular Waste Management

Waste collection and recycling services are some of the most essential functions of government to keep cities clean and promote public health. For more than 50 years, local governments have championed efforts to improve the environmental sustainability of waste management services by establishing curbside recycling programs, investing in sorting facilities, capturing methane and other greenhouse gases from landfills and much…

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New white paper: Policy Guidelines for Recycled Content Mandates

Minimum recycled content mandates are a critical policy tool to drive higher recyclable material prices and investment for recycling, address climate change, help stabilise municipal waste budgets, and enable resilient local economies. This white paper, drafted by Director of Reloop North America, Elizabeth Balkan, offers a framework for effective and responsible scoping of recycled content…

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In the media: How Reloop impacts European waste policy and its plans for the U.S.

Wondering who Reloop is, what we’ve been up to, and what some of our plans are moving forward? The article below, shared from Waste360.com, offers a great summary. ———————- 15 June 2021 – Determining what a circular economy should look like, and advancing policy around it, is best done by bringing together environmental groups, government,…

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Interview with Resource Recycling

Back in March, Reloop’s CEO Clarissa Morawski sat down (virtually!) with Resource Recycling’s Jared Paben to share her thoughts on what North American stakeholders can learn from Europe’s plastics policies and strategies. You can watch the webinar here:

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US Media Release: 140 Billion drink containers wasted nationally every year

MEDIA RELEASE 140 BILLION DRINKS CONTAINERS WASTED NATIONALLY EVERY YEAR 29 April 2021 Elizabeth Balkan elizabeth.balkan@reloopplatform.org Published Reloop [1] data [2] shows that more than 140 billion empty drinks containers – glass bottles, PET plastic bottles and metal cans – were wasted [3] across the United States in 2019. over 74 billion were PET bottles,…

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Recycling Unpacked: Maximizing Circularity in US Beverage Packaging

As part of Circular City Week New York, Metabolic co-hosted this webinar “Recycling Unpacked” to explore the potential for a circular beverage packaging sector for the U.S. The webinar featured our Americas Director Elizabeth Balkan alongside panelists from Eco-Cycle, Nestle Waters, NYC Department of Sanitation, and Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in…

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Deposit return systems are key to solving the plastic paradox

As consumer demand for recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) grows and governments continue to set regulations to increase use of recycled materials, a plastic paradox is created: there isn’t enough high-quality material being collected and recycled for manufacturers to meet the increased demand. In this article for Waste Dive, our Director of Americas Elizabeth Balkan explains how deposit…

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Reloop and CRI comments on EPA consultation on recycling calculation

Together with the Container Recycling Institute, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and the Conservation Law Foundation, Reloop has prepared a joint letter to the U.S. EPA with comments about the methodology it uses to calculate national recycling rates, and how this methodology might be improved. Among other things, we discuss how a combination of over-counting…

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