Quantitative analysis of residential plastic recycling in New York City

More than 420,000 tonnes of plastic waste is produced every year in New York City (NYC). This plastic represents 15% of municipal solid waste in NYC and is in line with New York State and United States averages. This material is managed by NYC’s dual-stream recycling system and industry-leading material recovery facilities. However, not all plastic collected for recycling (diverted) is ultimately sold to be remanufactured into new products (recovered). This study utilizes publicly available data to quantify and compare the diversion and recovery rates of residential plastics in NYC to provide quantitative context of such a process in a large metropolitan area. In 2018, 35.2% of plastics suitable for recycling were diverted, indicating a potential to improve collection. Of these, only 53.4% of plastics diverted for recycling were ultimately recovered through sale into the markets. This is aligned with the theoretical maximum recycling potential described in other scholarly work. The 53.4% recovery rate of diverted plastics indicates that an increase in diversion would not yield an equivalent increase in recovery. Additionally, barriers to the recovery of plastic waste impact the actual recycling rate. The literature and this study recognize that contamination, technology limitations, and the availability of markets all influence the sorting and selling of plastics. Furthermore, plastic recycling has recently received significant attention due to the implementation of China’s National Sword policy. This study demonstrates that from 2017 to 2018, while the sales of plastics #3–7 decreased, the overall recovery rate of plastics in NYC was not impacted by China’s National Sword policy.