By Jacob Barron

A bouquet of flowers made from recycled plastics.

There’s a lot of data illustrating recycling’s economic viability, environmental bona fides and overall growth out there. We’ve collected some of it here for the benefit of naysayers and true believers alike. Below is a (not even close to comprehensive) rundown of facts about the importance of recycling. Did we miss any? Leave us a comment or send us a tweet and we’ll add it in!

Robin Wiener, president of the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (via Recycling International): “Recycling accounts for nearly US$ 106 billion in annual economic activity and is responsible for 471,587 direct and indirect jobs in the USA, generating more than US$ 4.3 billion in state and local revenues annually and a further US$ 6.76 billion in federal taxes.”

Grist’s Ben Adler: “Commercial customers want [recycling] to lower their waste bill, whether it’s a restaurant, factory, or college,” says Chaz Miller, director of policy and advocacy for the National Waste and Recycling Association (NWRA). “They see the ability to sell their recyclables and they want the revenue. We do not see commercial clients backing away from recycling.”

Eco-Cycle Solutions: If everyone in the United States recycled only their plastic water bottles for one year (all 42.6 BILLION of them), that would offset the greenhouse gases generated by 1,065,000 round-trips between London and New York in coach every year.

The Closed Loop Fund: “According to the EPA, recycling rates doubled from 16 percent in 1990 to 28.5 percent and to 34 percent in 2010—a 40 percent increase every decade.”

From the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division: “According to RecyclingMarkets.net, the average prices for recovered plastics as of June 2, 2015, were: HDPE natural plastic (milk jugs) $0.32 per pound, PET (beverage bottles) $0.14 per pound, and PP (deli and dairy tubs and lids) $0.14 per pound. During the same period, prices of mixed paper, newspaper and old corrugated containers (cardboard) ranged from $0.02 to $0.04 per pound.”

Ron Gonen, former Deputy Commissioner for Sanitation and Recycling in NYC:  “The economics of recycling for a City are simple. Send paper, metal, glass, plastics and food waste to landfill, the City is charged a fee….Send the same material to a local recycling facility or organics processor, the City avoids the landfill fee and sometimes also generates revenue.”

Rick Moore, executive director of the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR): “Even with low plastic resin prices, use of recycled PET in the U.S. is at an all-time high.”

There is a paradigm shift happening in waste management.  We are no longer just talking about recycling; rather, we’re having a broader conversation about sustainable materials management, and taking a bigger systems approach. There are both measurable and immeasurable benefits of recycling in the big picture of sustainable materials management and overall lifecycle impacts.

Send us a comment or tweet us at @SPI_4_Plasticsif you’d like to contribute additional facts about the benefits or importance of recycling.