The materials people are recycling are changing with the times, according to a new report, and becoming “lighter, more varied, and more operationally complex to manage.”
In the second installment of its 2026 State of Recycling Report, the Recycling Partnership found that the generation of what it calls “traditionally collected material” has declined by 3.7 million tons, or 8%, except for films often used for packaging.
Households’ cardboard generation rose by 32%, which the Recycling Partnership said was driven by the explosion of online shopping and deliveries spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Other materials that increased included cartons (61%); non-bottle Polyethylene Terephthalate (48%); polypropylene (47%); aluminum foil and trays (44%); and aluminum cans (18%).
Meanwhile, mixed paper generation fell by 34%, and glass dropped by 28%.
In total, household generation of cardboard, metals and plastic containers jumped from 39% of traditionally collected material generation in 2020 to 51% over six years. Combined plastics, including film and flexibles, currently make up 31% of generation. Mixed paper, in comparison, is 28%.
“What comes out of American homes shapes what our recycling system must be ready to handle next,” Cody Marshall, chief programs officer at The Recycling Partnership, said in a statement. “This new data shows not only the scale of the opportunity, with households generating roughly 705 pounds of traditionally collected recyclable materials plus film and flexibles each year, but how quickly that material mix is changing.”
The report highlighted concerns that although the material stream has become more complex, the system of recycling these materials “has not evolved at the same pace.”
“Residents are being asked to make more decisions about a wider range of packaging formats, often without corresponding changes in the tools and systems available to them. If that gap continues to grow, so will the barriers to getting recyclable material into the right stream,” the report said. “The risk extends across the system. If education and outreach do not keep pace, residents face greater uncertainty about what and how to recycle. If collection and processing systems do not adapt to changing materials and formats, more recyclable material may be lost.”
What does this mean for recycling?
Households are estimated to create 51.5 million tons of packaging and printed paper in 2026, according to the report.
“What is designed and produced upstream ultimately shapes what residents discard, and what collection programs, materials recovery facilities, processors, and end markets must manage,” report authors said.
The report authors wrote that investment and innovation changed what products and packages are in people’s homes. What’s needed, they said, is that same level of investment and innovation to happen when it comes to collecting, sorting and processing so “that recyclable material can become feedstock for new products.”
“Collection and processing are essential infrastructure, but they must be matched with strong markets for sorted materials,” the report’s authors said. “Understanding how the residential material mix is evolving provides critical data to guide investment and inform policies that can strengthen recycling supply chains and demand for domestically sourced recycled content.”
The way products are packed is shifting in ways that affect how material is managed, report authors said. For instance, they noted a trend toward “lightweighting” by brands, particularly in food packaging but also in other items.
Because product packaging is getting lighter, more individual items can represent less total weight, the report noted, so “the number of items moving through the system may be growing, even as total tonnage declines.”
In addition, the “social utility” of former products such as newspapers, catalogs and physical mail has disappeared, the Recycling Partnership said, so brands have moved in other directions, “with increased use of flexible formats that are not yet widely recyclable alongside intentional shifts toward more recyclable rigid formats.”
“Variety has expanded as the number of distinct packaging forms — including new non-bottle plastics, carton types, and flexible packaging — continues to grow,” the report said.
These changes in generation across fiber, aluminum, glass, and plastic “are reshaping the mix of material the residential recycling system must manage.”
Report authors refer to this as “the evolving ton.”
“Newly evolved packaging formats leave residents wondering, ‘Is this recyclable?’ and community programs face time and resource challenges to keep pace,” the report authors said. “What gets recovered depends on how the entire system responds.”
This evolution, the report said, “reveals both recycling bright spots and opportunities to recover more material.”
“Proven interventions such as cart-based collection, education, and outreach show what is possible when barriers to recycling are addressed,” the report said.
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