Our ability to reuse, repair, and recycle is determined in city halls, state capitals, and Washington, D.C. The solution to food rotting before it’s eaten, flexible film that curbside will never touch, 81 pounds of textiles per person per year, electronics leaching heavy metals, diapers outlasting the children who wore them start at the ballot box.

The recycling access gap the EPA identified is not a personal-responsibility problem. Forty percent of U.S. households lack curbside recycling service — six percent have no access to recycling at all — but almost all enjoy trash pickup services. Six percent have no recycling service at all. The gap between what the existing infrastructure does and what it could do represents $36.5 to $43.4 billion in unspent public investment — funding the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 assessment found would raise the national recycling rate from 32% to 61% and pay for itself through avoided disposal costs alone.

The choice to make or not make that investment is a political choice. That is what elections and comment periods and city council meetings are for. Dig into our guide to voting for the creation of a robust U.S. circular economy. We offer suggestions about how to vote on a couple of specific issues, but our goal is to help you think through how your community needs to change, what ideas to present to your representatives, and the evidence to share when you talk with them.

At the local level: what elected officials can do

Municipal governments make the decisions that determine your household’s recycling access. City councils approve solid-waste contracts. County commissioners determine whether a composting facility gets funded. Public works departments decide whether drop-off sites stay open. These officials respond to constituent pressure more reliably than almost any other level of government.

Ask specific questions

“Does our city have a plan to expand curbside organics collection?” is a question a public works director can answer. “What’s our current MRF contract, and when does it come up for renewal?” is a question a city councilmember can put on an agenda. “Is the municipality pursuing federal infrastructure funding for recycling facility upgrades?” is a question that can unlock a grant application that would otherwise not get filed. Citizens, who ultimately determine who sits on local councils, have their greatest impact near home.

Federal infrastructure money for recycling and composting exists but is underutilized. The EPA’s 2024 assessment found that 48% of states and territories don’t even collect data on how many curbside programs they have. You cannot pursue federal funding for something you haven’t quantified. Pushing local officials to measure a gap in services is the first step in the path to closing it.

Know your tipping fee and what’s driving it

The national average landfill tipping fee reached $62.28 per ton in 2024, up 10% from the prior year, the steepest annual jump in more than a decade. Cities in the Northeast pay over $80 per ton on average. As disposal costs rise, the cost-benefit argument for recycling and composting programs improves automatically. Local officials who have not recalculated their waste management economics recently may be working with outdated numbers. Ask them to run the comparison and explain to the community how they plan to improve services while raising rates.

At the state level: learn where your state is on the EPR map

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws that shift recycling infrastructure costs to the producers of packaging and products is the most consequential policy lever currently available. The state-by-state EPR map maintained by the Product Stewardship Institute shows where laws have passed, where bills are active, and where the gap remains. Where you live determines what producers must contribute to the cost of collection and processing, or face penalties.

Packaging EPR programs now cover most of the West Coast and Northeast

Oregon launched its program on July 1, 2025, with roughly $200 million in annual producer funding and posted first-year results earlier this month. The state added 20 new recycling centers, distributed tens of thousand of new bins, and gave more than 600,000 citizens new access to collection sites within 15 miles of their homes.

Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, and Maryland have laws in various stages of build-out. California’s program is projected to activate in 2027. And Washington signed the Recycling Reform Act in 2025, and the state’s Recycling Reform Act requires producers to fund 90% of recycling system costs statewide by 2030.

If you live in one of these states, find out how the program works. Holding producers accountable and pushing for strong performance requirements, particularly on flexible plastics, can change the environmental impact your taxes fund. If your state has no packaging EPR law, as in New York, where a bill failed again in 2026 after three attempts, send mail to your House and Senate representatives that makes a specific request for action. Check the Recycling Partnership’s EPR toolkit and the Product Stewardship Institute’s 2026 legislative tracker to find active bills by state and connect their advocates to testimony opportunities. Citizens who found and contacted the legislative sponsor of EPR bills and showe up for a committee hearing have helped packaging EPR laws go from a dream to reality in every state where bills have passed.

Bottle bills: the most effective way to boost container recovery

Deposit-return-scheme states recover container glass and aluminum at roughly twice the rate of states without bottle bills. Seven states introduced bottle-bill legislation in 2026, including Washington’s HB 1607, Maryland’s HB 331, Massachusetts’ H3464, and New York’s bill to double the deposit to 10 cents. If your state has a bill in session, a constituent email or committee appearance during the session window is the most direct action available.

Textile EPR: California leads, every other state needs to follow

Textile EPR exists in one state, California. SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, led to the March 2026 selection of Landbell USA as the producer responsibility organization that will run the statewide clothing and textiles collection program. Every other state with a fast-fashion retail presence and that contributes to the 17-million-ton national textile waste stream is a ripe target for your personal advocacy. Track the program’s rollout and learn about the issues your legislator needs to understand by visiting the SB 707 implementation tracker.

State-level social cost of carbon accounting.

California, Colorado, and New York have maintained their own social cost of carbon (SCC) frameworks independent of the federal rollback ordered in Executive Order 14154. These systems calculate the future cost, in terms of health and environmental damage, of a ton of carbon. Setting that price enables states to levy penalties to cover the expenses associated with climate change and extreme weather.

States without their own frameworks effectively treat climate damage as a give-away, which produces systematically wrong answers on every cost-benefit analysis related to waste. Advocating for state-level SCC adoption is unglamorous work, and that’s why it matters most; it can shift the entire regulatory calculus for waste, energy, and transportation with one bill. The Resources for the Future SCC explainer is the great resource for making the case to state legislators.

At the federal level: what to watch and what to fight

Federal policy shapes what the states can do, what data exists to make the case, and what producers are required to account for. The EU has pursued regulation much more aggressively than the United States, but consumer demand for environmental accountability and impact data is on the rise.

Fight the elimination of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program

In September 2025, EPA formally proposed ending the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, the facility-level emissions tracking system that provides the data researchers use to measure the gap between reported and actual landfill methane emissions. The formal rulemaking drew 53,085 public comments before its November 2025 deadline. The rule has not been finalized. Satellite measurements suggest actual landfill methane emissions average roughly six times what facilities report under the current program; eliminating reporting doesn’t reduce emissions, it removes accountability. Contact your senators and Congressional representative and share your opinion about how the rule should be finalized.

Federal infrastructure funding for recycling exists and can be expanded

The EPA’s $36.5–$43.4 billion infrastructure investment estimate describes the cost of closing the access gap. It’s not necessary to leave this to the states, and a national system can create efficiencies that reduce producers’ cost of compliance.

Congressional appropriations and infrastructure funding both have pathways to recycling investment. The recycling industry generates $184 billion in annual economic activity and supports 603,000 jobs directly and indirectly. Ask your federal representatives if they are willing to treat recycling infrastructure is domestic industrial policy, even as a national security investment to reduce dependence on overseas sources. Don’t just ask, take the time to recycle to demonstrate the demand through your curbside bin.

Ask candidates what they actually know

A candidate who thinks the recycling system is working because they have a blue bin has not looked at the numbers. Here are four questions worth putting to candidates at every level:

• What is the recycling access gap in your district, and what is your plan to close it?
• Does the state have packaging EPR legislation, and if not, why not? (Check the PSI legislative tracker for your state’s status.)
• What is your position on the social cost of carbon as a tool for making regulatory decisions?
• How would you vote on federal infrastructure funding for materials recovery (recycling) and organics processing (composting)?

Their answers reveal whether waste policy is something the candidate has thought about or something they are about to learn they need to think about.

The system is not broken because people don’t care enough about recycling — it is broken because the infrastructure was never built, the producers were never made responsible, and the accounting has never been honest. Those are fixable problems, and the people with the power to fix them are accountable to you.

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