Federal Recycling Push Is Welcome, But Let’s Start with Fixing Domestic Collection

At a recent hearing before the U.S. House Environment Subcommittee, lawmakers and industry leaders rolled out new proposals to improve how we recycle in this country—from upgrading infrastructure to standardizing labeling. That’s good news for American manufacturers, good news for consumers, and good news for the environment.

But while the federal discussion is moving in the right direction, one major issue still isn’t getting the attention it deserves: we’re not collecting enough recyclable material here at home.

The soon-to-be introduced CIRCLE Act is a promising step. By offering a 30% tax credit for investments in new or upgraded recycling infrastructure, it aims to bring private-sector capital into the recycling space and give local governments tools to modernize their systems. That’s a smart way to boost capacity—but capacity isn’t the core problem.

Supply is.

Right now, U.S. manufacturers trying to increase recycled content in their products are running into a bottleneck where there simply isn’t enough domestically sourced material available. Incredibly, many companies are turning to imported waste plastic and used materials from overseas just to meet demand—even as our own parks, roadways, and waterways are littered with exactly the kind of material that should be getting collected and reused.

That’s why any federal effort to strengthen recycling—whether through tax credits, labeling standards, or regulatory reform needs to address domestic collection head-on.

Here in Texas, we’re advocating for exactly that kind of approach. HB 2048, our proposed state legislation, would have established a no-tax, no-mandate refund program for beverage containers—giving consumers an incentive to return their bottles and cans, while providing a steady stream of clean material for recycling markets.

We look forward to working with federal partners to strengthen America’s recycling system. But let’s be clear, it doesn’t matter how advanced our recycling infrastructure gets if we don’t have the material to run through it. Solving the domestic collection crisis should be priority number one.