Putting the Can at the Core: Powering Texas Recycling with Aluminum Cans

Texas has a tremendous amount to gain from improving its aluminum recycling infrastructure - and would be well worth the investment.

Putting the Can at the Core - Aluminium.pdf

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More than 100 billion aluminum beverage cans are used every year in the United States. Aluminum can be recycled endlessly; almost 75 percent of the aluminum ever produced is still in use. On average, aluminum beverage cans manufactured in the United States contain 73 percent recycled material; 93 percent of used aluminum beverage cans (UBCs) collected are actually transformed into new beverage cans; and the entire recycling process from collection to store shelf can be completed in as little as 60 days – all with recycling aluminum using just 5 percent of the energy necessary to make new or primary aluminum.

Unfortunately, many Americans improperly dispose of UBCs by throwing them in the trash, which leads to them being landfilled. The most up-to-date information indicates that the national recycling rate for UBCs is just 45.2 percent, and the rate has generally hovered around 50 percent for the last 20 years. States without bottle deposit laws, such as Texas, tend to have even lower UBC recycling rates; Texas recycles approximately 16 percent of UBCs.[1] By contrast, some countries have an average UBC recycling rate of more than 70 percent, with some countries (generally in Europe) exceeding 90 percent. Germany has reached 99 percent and Brazil, incredibly, recycles 100 percent of UBCs.

The figure of 16 percent is based on two estimates of the recycling rates for aluminum cans, whereas this paper focuses more narrowly on the subset of aluminum beverage cans; in the absence of more precise data, this paper assumes the recycling rates for these two categories of cans are the same.

The real focus must be on building consumer dedication to recycling. Whether a person recycles UBCs (or other material) is not a binary question. Many people recycle some of the time, but fail to do so on other occasions, particularly if any type of obstacle is present. This common, half-hearted approach suggests that genuine motivation for recycling, as well as access to recycling, needs to improve. 

While there is no perfect way to motivate consumers, a wide body of research indicates that a number of principles should be followed in attempting to change an audience’s behavior: customizing messages; using the power of social norms; specifying the action to be taken or avoided; encouraging people to make commitments to the desired behavior, whether public or private; appealing to positive emotions; and illustrating the concrete benefits of the behavioral change. A campaign built on these principles, when combined with better infrastructure and funding, could improve recycling rates dramatically. In addition to a continuous public outreach campaign, the state should improve the currently required instruction on recycling in its public education curriculum, which would ensure that the vast majority of Texans will eventually have solid knowledge regarding recycling’s benefits and the best practices for it.

Improving infrastructure for UBC recycling (and by extension, non-UBC materials as well) revolves heavily around developing curbside recycling programs administered by local governments. Drop-off recycling only- in which consumers must transport their recyclables to a designated location- has participation rates of just 9-15 percent. When consumers have the option of subscribing to a curbside recycling program for a fee, participation rates can exceed 30 percent. Better still, when people are automatically enrolled in curbside recycling programs, participation rates range from 60 to 80 percent. 

Although they are easy to overlook, carts are a critical ingredient of a curbside program- in particular, 96-gallon carts. These carts have a larger capacity than alternatives (especially 18-gallon bins) and are easier to move to the curb. Evidence indicates that carts improve recycling rates by 28 percent when compared to bins, and that figure would be even larger if the comparison involved bins to 96-gallon carts specifically.

The best available data, while far from precise, indicates that the percentage of Texas households with access to curbside recycling lags behind the national average somewhat. That discrepancy, however, is not pronounced, due in part to strong curbside service in most urban areas of the state. However, there is ample room for improvement. The available data indicates that there are at least 24 Texas cities with 25,000 people or more that lack curbside recycling services and at least another 28 with a population between 10,000 and 25,000 that lack such services. Moreover, in several populous counties of the state (particularly around the Houston area), a portion of the county lacks access to curbside recycling. While curbside recycling may not be possible in every area of the state (such as very rural areas), policymakers should strive to provide curbside recycling in all cities with at least 10,000 residents, and to offer at least drop-off cycling in most areas where curbside recycling is not available or adopted.   

Read the full white paper in the link above.