[Senate Hearing 117-233]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 117-233

                LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS TO IMPROVE DOMESTIC 
                 RECYCLING AND COMPOSTING PROGRAMS

=======================================================================

                                 HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            FEBRUARY 2, 2022

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
  
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-294 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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               COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                  THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont                 Virginia, 
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island         Ranking Member
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ALEX PADILLA, California             ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
                                     DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
                                     JONI ERNST, Iowa
                                     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina

             Mary Frances Repko, Democratic Staff Director
               Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

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                                                                   Page

                            FEBRUARY 2, 2022
                           OPENING STATEMENTS

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware..     1
Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator from the State of West 
  Virginia.......................................................     4
Boozman, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Arkansas......     6

                               WITNESSES

Yepsen, Rhodes, Executive Director, Biodegradable Products 
  Institute......................................................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................    10
    Response to an additional question from Senator Whitehouse...   137
Murray, Pashon, Founder, Detroit Dirt............................   139
    Prepared statement...........................................   141
    Response to an additional question from Senator Whitehouse...   152
Harvey, Benjamin, President, E.L. Harvey and Sons, Inc...........   156
    Prepared statement...........................................   158
    Response to an additional question from Senator Whitehouse...   162
    Responses to additional questions from Senator Sullivan......   163
Hairston, Charles Levell, Vice President and General Manager for 
  Recycling and Recovered Fiber, International Paper.............   164
    Prepared statement...........................................   166
    Response to an additional question from:
        Senator Whitehouse.......................................   171
        Senator Sullivan.........................................   172

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Letter to Senator Carper from:
    The Glass Packaging Institute, February 2, 2022..............   197
    Tetra Pak, January 31, 2022..................................   200
Letter to Senators Carper and Capito from:
    The Aluminum Association et al., March 2, 2022...............   201
    The American Coatings Association, February 15, 2022.........   202
    Ball Corporation, March 2, 2022..............................   204
    Danimer Scientific, February 16, 2022........................   206
    The Plastics Industry Association, March 2, 2022.............   208
    The Flexible Packaging Association, February 8, 2022.........   210
    The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., February 
      1, 2022....................................................   221
Letter to Senators Carper and Boozman from:
    The Can Manufacturers Institute, January 31, 2022............   223
    Novelis, February 10, 2022...................................   226
Letter to Senators Carper, Capito, and Boozman:
    February 24, 2022............................................   227
    From the Aluminum Association, February 28, 2022.............   229
    From American Beverage, February 2, 2022.....................   230
    From the Paper Recycling Coalition, March 1, 2022............   231
    From the U.S. Composting Infrastructure Coalition, March 2, 
      2022.......................................................   233
    From AMP Robotics, February 25, 2022.........................   236
    From the Association of Oregon Recyclers, March 2, 2022......   238
Biopolymers and Recycling: An integrated approach to plastic 
  waste management, Danimer Scientific, August 2020..............   240
Statement of the American Chemistry Council, February 2, 2022....   246
Statement of the American Chemistry Council, March 2, 2022.......   248
Statement for the record from the American Forest & Paper 
  Association, February 2, 2022..................................   250
Legislative draft of the Recycling Infrastructure and 
  Accessibility Act of 2022......................................   252
Legislative draft of the Recycling and Composting Accountability 
  Act............................................................   260
Letter to Senators Carper and Capito from:
    The Plastics Industry Association, February 2, 2022..........   276
    The Flexible Packaging Association, February 8, 2022.........   277
Letter to Senator Capito from Novelis, February 10, 2022.........   288
Letter to Senators Carper, Capito, and Boozman from the Institute 
  of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., March 1, 2022.............   289

 
  LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS TO IMPROVE DOMESTIC RECYCLING AND COMPOSTING 
                                PROGRAMS

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Environment and Public Works,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m. in 
room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper 
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
    Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Whitehouse, Stabenow, 
Kelly, Boozman, and Sullivan.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 
            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

    Senator Carper. This Committee will come to order.
    I welcome a number of our witnesses that are here in 
person, I think three or four. Another person is joining us 
remotely. We welcome all four of you.
    I am going to give an opening statement, and our Ranking 
Member, Senator Capito, will do as well. Senator Boozman, who 
is the co-chair of the Senate Caucus on Recycling, will be 
speaking as well, in an opening statement.
    I was talking to Pashon, who is visiting us from Detroit, 
Michigan, where my Detroit Tigers are. Hopefully, pitchers and 
catchers are going to report in about 10 days if they can 
settle this strike. I hope they will, but I have passion. One 
of my passions, we were up here talking about football, about 
the Bengals. We have some Bengals fans up here, but I am a huge 
Detroit Tigers fan.
    Pashon, a special welcome to you.
    I am also passionate about recycling and composting. I have 
told Pashon and Rhodes, I said, I haven't recycled since this 
morning. Coming down on the train, the Amtrak takes recycling, 
and we have composting capabilities in all of our offices. So I 
composted right before I came over here, all the banana peels 
and apple cores and stuff that I wanted to compost. So these 
are things that I care about personally and have forever.
    Senator Capito and colleagues, I think I was a 22 year old 
Naval flight officer in training in California, just joined my 
squadron, and we were stationed near Palo Alto, California, and 
I used to recycle every month. I would drive over to the 
recycling center about 2 miles from my house and recycle when 
it wasn't that fashionable. So I have been doing this for a 
while, and I am too old to quit.
    Having said that, let me just get serious here, although I 
have been serious, but we have another big Detroit Tigers fan 
here, too, Senator Debbie Stabenow. She and I share this 
passion.
    Good morning. I am pleased to call this hearing to order. 
Let me start by thanking the witnesses for your willingness to 
be here today as we discuss two draft pieces of legislation 
related to recycling and composting.
    Rhodes Yepsen, is that the way you pronounce your name, 
Rhodes Yepsen? We don't have a lot of Yepsens that come here, 
or a lot of Rhodes, so we are especially delighted to have you 
here.
    Pashon, I don't recall in 20 years in the Senate ever 
having, from Detroit or anyplace else, Debbie, having a Pashon 
as a witness, but we are delighted that you are both here.
    Charles Levell, we are happy, Charles, to welcome you.
    We have, joining us remotely, we have one more person, I 
believe. Is that correct? I am looking on my statement here, to 
see who that person is. I don't see it. Ben Harvey.
    Ben, welcome Ben. We are glad you are out there and joining 
us remotely.
    As Ranking Member Capito, Senator Boozman, our Recycling 
Caucus co-chair, and many of our colleagues know, the topic of 
today's hearing is something that, as I have just mentioned, I 
care deeply about. I won't bore you again with my passion and 
where it came from. But we all have a part to play to improve 
our Nation's recycling and composting efforts.
    I am hopeful that today's discussion on two draft pieces of 
legislation will provide us with a bipartisan road map to 
address several of the challenges that America's recycling 
efforts currently face. Challenges, but also, I think, great 
opportunities. What Einstein used to say, in adversity, lies 
opportunity, so that is what we are all about here.
    One of these challenges is the availability of good data. 
This past November, the Environmental Protection Agency 
released its first ever National Recycling Strategy. This 
Committee provided a lot, extensive; Michael Regan, the EPA 
Administrator, will tell you, we provided, from the Committee, 
significant input to the development of that National Recycling 
Strategy, and it reflects the bipartisan views on this subject.
    The document that has been released a month or so ago by 
EPA offers a transformative vision for strengthening our 
Nation's waste management efforts, and it also highlights the 
need for greater standardization around data collection. To 
address this, Senator Boozman and I, with the help of our 
staffs, have developed the Recycling and Composting 
Accountability Act, one of the two bills that we are going to 
focus on today. Our bill would improve EPA's ability to gather 
data on our Nation's recycling systems and explore 
opportunities for implementing national composting strategy.
    This bill is an important first step toward a national 
composting strategy. I hope that the experts who are here with 
us today, as well as other stakeholders, will support our 
efforts to get the ball rolling at long last.
    Today, we will also focus on increasing access to 
recycling. Many Americans in disadvantaged communities want to 
recycle, and they want to compost, too, but are unable to do so 
because they live in neighborhoods that lack curbside pickup, 
bottle return, and other necessary recycling infrastructure.
    Senator Capito's Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility 
Act would help address this by creating a pilot program at EPA 
to improve recycling services in underserved areas. This 
legislation has the potential to bring many communities into 
the recycling world, including those in urban and suburban 
areas while also protecting our environment. I commend Senator 
Capito for her work and leadership on this bill, and I want to 
work with her and her team to make sure the bill helps 
jumpstart recycling in communities with the greatest need, 
especially those that have historically been left behind.
    Both of the two bills I have mentioned are the result of 
true collaboration and reflect a substantial amount of 
bipartisan effort dedicated to exploring our Nation's recycling 
and composting challenges. This fall, our Committee held 
several recycling roundtables, as some of you will recall, as 
well as a hearing on the important of transitioning to a 
circular economy.
    The term circular economy is going to be something people 
will start hearing about, thinking about a whole lot in the 
days to come. It is a way of doing business that would mean 
less pollution from landfills and stronger, more efficient 
supply chains. We benefited from the suggestions of numerous 
stakeholders on how Congress could collaborate with industry to 
bolster recycling efforts.
    Fortunately, we also discovered that with awareness and 
motivation, we can do a great deal to address the obvious needs 
and change some of the damaging behavior.
    One product that stood out in recycling was aluminum, as 
many of you know. Few of us realize this, but 75 percent of 
aluminum, I am told, 75 percent of aluminum ever mined is still 
in use today. Think about that; 75 percent of aluminum ever 
mined is still in use today. That is important, because 
aluminum products made from recycled materials use 95 percent 
less energy than it would take to create from first use 
materials. I have got to say that again. It is important, 
because aluminum products made from recycling materials use 95 
percent less energy that it would take to create them from 
first use material.
    In most cases, recycled products are more energy efficient, 
which translates directly into reduced greenhouse gas 
emissions, something we all care about. That is the power of a 
circular economy.
    As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 
which really has its roots right here from this Committee last 
year, Congress provided unprecedented levels of funding for 
recycling infrastructure and educational programs. The two 
bills we are examining today represent our next steps to build 
on these efforts to turn the challenges of recycling and 
composting into opportunities to reduce planet warming 
emissions and create good paying jobs.
    Someday, I hope to be asked by my children and 
grandchildren, what did you do to stop climate change and help 
save our planet? I want to be able to say, my generation did 
everything we could, everything we could. Working with Senators 
Capito, Boozman, and other members of this Committee and our 
colleagues in the Senate and the House and a lot of other 
stakeholders, I embrace the chance to work on a bipartisan 
basis to dramatically improve our recycling and composting 
systems in America. By doing so, we can respect our planet, 
preserve the precious resources that God has bestowed upon us, 
and I might also add, create a lot of jobs, good paying jobs, 
all over the country: In West Virginia, in Arkansas, in 
Delaware, in Michigan, and a whole lot of other places, too.
    With that, let me turn it over to our Ranking Member and 
partner on these issues and so many others for her opening 
remarks.
    Also, Taylor, I understand that Taylor, not Taylor Swift, 
but we have some bad news from Taylor. We will miss Taylor, and 
we are grateful for all of her help.

        OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, 
          U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

    Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I thank the witnesses for being here with us today.
    A lot of what the Chairman has said in his opening 
statement is mirrored in my own statements as well, because 
this is an issue that cuts across party, and certainly is 
absolutely essential in this Committee.
    In 2021, this Committee and the Congressional Recycling 
Caucus, which Senator Boozman is the co-chair of with Chairman 
Carper, they were extremely active in getting a hearing on 
stakeholder input on recycling policy. At that hearing, we 
discussed the need to expand material processing and 
manufacturing here in America and how a lack of demand for 
recycled materials is inhibiting market development, and as a 
result, investment in recycling infrastructure.
    The week before that committee hearing, Chairman Carper and 
I co-hosted a roundtable called Leadership in Recycling: 
Sustainable Practices and Innovative Technologies, where we had 
the opportunity to learn about some of the technological 
advancements in the recycling sector directly from our industry 
leaders.
    Later in the year, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act, led by this Committee, was enacted into law, establishing 
a new grant program for recycling education to reduce 
contamination and provide a feedstock of recyclable materials. 
This legislation also appropriated historic amounts of funding 
for recycling infrastructure and education.
    Today, we build on that momentum with a hearing on draft 
legislation to address some of the data and accessibility gaps 
in the sector to further improve recycling across the country.
    First, I will talk about my draft legislation, which is the 
Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act. This 
legislation establishes, as the Chair said, a pilot program to 
improve recycling accessibility throughout the United States, 
with a particular emphasis on bringing recyclable services to 
underserved areas.
    Recycling services, particularly curbside recycling, is not 
offered in many rural communities, like those of my home State 
of West Virginia. In fact, a study released last year showed 
that West Virginia has a recycling rate of just 2 percent when 
excluding cardboard, the lowest recycling rate in the States.
    If you include cardboard, we don't do much better, with a 
recycling rate of 31 percent and a ranking of 40th in the 
Nation. According to the most recent recycling survey by the 
Department of Environmental Protection in West Virginia, of the 
50 county and regional solid waste authorities, only 35 provide 
recycling services, and five work closely with local recyclers 
or municipalities to make sure that residents have recycling 
options.
    Together, these counties have 129 drop off locations and 36 
curbside. Of those, 14 are municipalities that have 
populations--we have 14 cities that have populations that 
exceed 10,000, and they are required to provide curbside 
recycling, but this is a problem.
    This is a challenge not just for our State, but also other 
States that are represented on this Committee, like Alaska and 
Wyoming, who face similar barriers. These rural areas share 
common challenges to accessibility: Location and proximity to 
material recovery facilities and the size and density of the 
population. This leads to low processing yields and high 
collection and transportation costs, leaving materials recovery 
facilities struggling to operate at a profit.
    According to an opinion piece on WasteDive, something I 
read every day, that was a little tongue in cheek there, a news 
outlet covering the industry: ``It is not uncommon for a small 
town to put out a request for a proposal asking waste companies 
to bid on recycling opportunities and to not receive any bids 
back due to the lack of perceived profitability.''
    This pilot program established would provide resources to 
increase collection and transportation of recyclables through 
investments to transfer stations, for example, providing access 
in those areas where a materials recovery facility may not be 
able to operate at a profit.
    Second, Senator Carper, Senator Boozman, and I have 
collaborated on a draft bill, the Recycling and Composting 
Accountability Act. This bill requires EPA to collect and 
distribute data on recycling and composting across the country 
to provide an accurate reflection of the performance both 
nationwide and statewide. This is information that is critical 
for us to be able to evaluate how we can improve and how to 
best inform future recycling policies.
    Recycling is a win-win solution, as the Chairman says, for 
our environment and our economy. In this political climate, it 
is critical that we remember there is a lot we agree on, and we 
need to be diligent in identifying and pursuing those 
bipartisan opportunities to improve the future. That is what we 
are doing here today.
    It is with great sadness that I announce, as the Chairman 
said, that I am losing a valued staff member at the end of this 
week, one who is here with me today, who has been absolutely 
integral in not only the recycling space, but other areas on 
the Committee. Taylor Meredith will be leaving us. It is rare 
that you meet a person who brings as much intellect and 
enthusiasm, both in a personal way and a professional way, and 
Taylor is one of those. So I know she will succeed wherever she 
goes, and we will certainly miss her and wish her all the best.
    So Taylor, thank you.
    Senator Carper. Amen.
    Senator Boozman, I oftentimes refer to our Ranking Member 
as my wingwoman, and she refers to me sometimes as her wingman, 
and she has other descriptive terms as well, depending on how I 
am behaving. But I just want to say thank you for being my 
wingman. I think we have been great partners leading the 
Recycling Caucus here in the Senate, and we have a bunch of 
folks on this Committee that are part of that and that are not 
on this Committee.
    John, why don't you go ahead and make an opening statement?

            OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN, 
            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

    Senator Boozman. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, 
and I want to congratulate you and Senator Capito for the 
example that you set around here. We hear a lot about the 
rancor, and this and that, and we don't always agree. But I 
know that you two together are always trying to find common 
ground and find a path forward, which is so, so very important.
    First, I want to thank you all very much for your attention 
to this important issue and for allowing us to discuss two 
pieces of legislation, the discussion draft of the Recycling 
and Composting Accountability Act that Chairman Carper and I 
have been working on, along with Senator Capito's Recycling 
Infrastructure and Accessibility Act. As the co-chair of the 
Senate Recycling Caucus, I understand the challenges and 
opportunities facing the recycling industry. It is certainly 
very important to me, and I know it is important to Senator 
Capito and Chairman Carper.
    So, we do appreciate you all being here very, very much. We 
have a distinguished panel. When Chairman Carper and I began 
working on our proposal, we shared a goal of learning more 
about the landscape of recycling and identifying the challenges 
facing our Nation's recycling and composting infrastructure.
    As you can imagine, the ability to recycle in Delaware and 
the ability to recycle in Arkansas are different. It is 
important to identify these regional differences so we can 
properly invest our resources to fix our Nation's recycling 
challenges. I believe there is great opportunity to make 
improvements in the recycling space. I look forward to 
continuing to work with Chairman Carper and Ranking Member 
Capito so we can develop meaningful, long term solutions that 
address the challenges facing the recycling industry today.
    Thank you to the witnesses again for your participation and 
sharing your expertise. I look forward to hearing your thoughts 
on these two pieces of legislation.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Stabenow, I think you are going to introduce 
somebody from your home State. Please proceed, thank you.
    Senator Stabenow. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman 
and Ranking Member. This is a really important hearing, and I 
am so pleased that you have picked someone who is doing a 
fantastic job in Michigan, as well as across the country. It is 
my pleasure to introduce entrepreneur, activist, and educator, 
Michigan's own Pashon Murray.
    Welcome.
    Pashon was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and 
after college, she helped manage one of the city's leadership 
and energy and environmental design projects, which culminated 
in the country's first LEED certified YMCA. Today, Pashon is 
working to improve the carbon footprint of Detroit and beyond 
by finding solutions for everyday waste and eliminating trips 
to the landfill through composting.
    She is the founder of Detroit Dirt, I love that name, 
Detroit Dirt, a revolutionary closed loop composting company 
she started in 2010 that provides compost and food waste 
solutions to local businesses. Through her work at Detroit 
Dirt, Pashon is helping to build a low carbon economy by 
motivating communities and industries to have a zero waste 
mindset. In 2017, she expanded her impact further by 
establishing the Detroit Dirt Foundation, a non-profit serving 
the public through environmental education, research projects, 
and sustainable programs.
    Recently, Mr. Chairman, she was recognized as a United 
Nations FAO food hero.
    Ms. Murray, welcome. Thank you so much for the great work 
you are doing in Michigan as well as across the country. I am 
excited to welcome you to the Committee hearing.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper. Senator Stabenow, thanks so much for 
introducing Pashon to all of us. Let me briefly introduce our 
other three remaining witnesses.
    Rhodes Yepsen, Rhodes, raise your hand, please. Good to see 
you, my friend.
    Rhodes is the Executive Director of the Biodegradable 
Products Institute, where he advocates for the value of 
compostable packaging and its role in diverting food waste from 
our landfills.
    Welcome, Mr. Yepsen.
    We are also joined by Ben Harvey. Ben is Chairman of the 
National Waste and Recycling Association.
    Ben, I think you are out there in the atmosphere, and you 
are joining us, I think, remotely. We are delighted that you 
are doing that.
    Our last witness is Charles Levell Hairston, and he goes by 
Levell. Levell is the General Manager for Recycling and 
Recovered Fibers, and he is joining us today.
    And Mr. Hairston, welcome. We are delighted to see you.
    I think, with that, we are going to start off with Mr. 
Yepsen.
    You are welcome to present your testimony when you are 
ready. Take it away. Thank you.

 STATEMENT OF RHODES YEPSEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BIODEGRADABLE 
                       PRODUCTS INSTITUTE

    Mr. Yepsen. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, members 
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide 
feedback on these two pieces of legislation today advocating 
for our Nation's systems for recycling and composting. It is 
wonderful to see bipartisan support on these two initiatives.
    As you heard, I am here on behalf of the Biodegradable 
Products Institute, a non-profit that advocates for the value 
of certified compostable packaging in diverting organic waste 
to composting.
    These two pieces of draft legislation complement each other 
very well. Starting with the Recycling and Composting 
Accountability Act, it will provide much needed national level 
support by attracting and quantifying the key aspects of 
successful recycling and composting programs. This includes the 
topic of access, whether that is curbside collection or drop 
off, the question of processing infrastructure capabilities and 
capacities. It addresses end markets for recycled material and 
finished compost, and it considers the importance of education 
and labeling.
    As I explain in greater detail in my written testimony, no 
one of these aspects on its own is sufficient for determining 
the success of recycling or composting, because these are 
systems of interconnected stakeholders that form a value chain. 
This is precisely why I am so excited to be here today, as BPI 
focuses on systems based thinking for compostable packaging, 
rather than a product based solution, meaning the items aren't 
just technically compostable, but are designed to fit into food 
scraps collection and composting programs.
    Looking at EPA's facts and figures, food is continually the 
No. 1 material sent to landfills and incinerators today. And 
the U.N. estimates that if food waste and loss were a country, 
it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the 
world, after the U.S. and China. That food is often tangled in 
non-recyclable food soiled packaging that makes it challenging 
for composters to recover. Compostable packaging enables the 
diversion of food scraps and associated packaging.
    Groups like BioCycle Magazine have been tracking 
residential compost access and compost infrastructure for 
decades, partnering with groups like BPI on projects like 
FindAComposter.com to map access. The last reports from 
BioCycle show that over 10 million households now have access 
to either curbside or drop off food scraps collection 
composting, a number that grows each year, but is still a 
fraction of our population. Of the 4,700 composting facilities 
around the U.S., the majority accept only yard trimmings, not 
food scraps or other materials.
    The U.S. Composting Council has done excellent work 
promoting end markets for finished compost, such as 
specifications for compost in use of Department of 
Transportation projects. Compost use helps restore our soils, 
improving water retention, pest resistance, nutrients for 
crops, humus for conditioning the soil. These benefits have 
been popularized in books and documentaries like Kiss the 
Ground and in research and reports by the Rodale Institute.
    Unlike with recycling, composting is inherently local. 
Neither the raw materials, largely food scraps and yard 
trimmings, nor the finished compost are going to be shipped 
internationally like recycling. The resources will be kept 
regionally for use in agriculture, landscaping, and other 
beneficial uses.
    Without the type of foundational data and reporting that 
the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act sets out for 
the EPA and without grant funding for communities like that 
provided in the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act, 
we won't realistically be able to advance a national strategy 
to recovering products and packaging in a meaningful way, and 
we won't be able to realize all the benefits associated with 
widespread recycling and composting.
    A few small points of clarification. In the Recycling and 
Composting Accountability Act, we suggest amending the 
definition of compostable materials to include certified 
compostable products beyond just paper. Compostable products 
and packaging will increasingly be part of the solution as 
companies and State governments roll out commitments to making 
all packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable.
    In the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act, we 
have two comments. The first is expanding the scope to include 
composting, as food soiled articles are often not readily 
recyclable, and again, the EPA is estimating roughly 40 percent 
of landfill and incinerator bound material is made up of food, 
yard trimmings, and wood waste, meaning we will need composting 
alongside recycling to make a difference. That would also help 
further align the two bills.
    Finally, we recommend modifying the definition of 
underserved to be more inclusive of urban and suburban 
populations. We definitely respect that distance to processing 
facility is important, but that it is not the only determinant 
for whether a community offers recycling or composting, and 
that there may be communities that already have recycling or 
composting programs, but charge an extra fee for that service, 
setting a barrier to participation. These funds could be used 
more broadly.
    Thank you for putting forward two excellent legislative 
proposals to improve domestic recycling and composting programs 
and for the opportunity to provide testimony and support. It 
has been an honor.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Yepsen follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Carper. The honor is ours. Thanks, Mr. Yepsen. 
Thanks for the good work that you are doing and for joining us 
today.
    Pashon, you have already been introduced by Senator 
Stabenow, so we will just turn it over to you to give your 
statement. Please proceed.

       STATEMENT OF PASHON MURRAY, FOUNDER, DETROIT DIRT

    Ms. Murray. Thank you.
    Good morning to all of the Senators. It is an honor to be 
here.
    First, I would just like to read a letter that I addressed, 
and then I will just make a couple of statements, but just for 
the record, I do support both bills, or legislation. I think 
that we are moving in a positive step, moving forward for the 
future for generations to come, so thank you.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    Ms. Murray. At Detroit Dirt, our mission is to create a 
zero waste mindset and drive forward a low carbon economy. The 
foundation of our work is in climate change adaptation in terms 
of food waste. This is rooted in specific actions that create 
movement toward carbon dioxide reductions. We must also address 
food loss and waste because the U.S. spends $218 billion a year 
growing, processing, and transporting food that is not 
consumed.
    At Detroit Dirt, we transport food waste from clients and 
process it into a high quality compost. This impacts the 
environment by using food waste to its highest and best use, as 
a compost product for agriculture. Diverting food waste from 
landfills also mitigates the generation of carbon dioxide and 
methane.
    The benefits of using compost in agriculture are many, 
including increased crop yields and healthier plants. Beyond 
agriculture, incorporating compost into contaminated soils 
mitigates contaminants such as lead and other pollutants. 
Compost also helps increase soil's ability to hold stormwater 
runoff, which impacts nearby lakes.
    Another important part of our work is in soil erosion on 
agricultural lands. The rates of soil erosion and depletion 
exceed new soil production by billions of tons per year. The 
unprecedented loss of soil health and productivity has been 
well documented. In the U.S., there are reported to be less 
than 60 years of productive harvests. This speaks to the 
critical need to take organic materials like food waste, 
capture its embedded energy, and bring it back into the soils 
to increase the organic matter that agricultural soils must 
maintain.
    In terms of the environmental stewardship and circular 
economies, we know that we must take positive steps to make 
changes through strong partnerships. With these partnerships, 
we must establish foundations to support the next generation of 
people who will inherit a different world. Part of our vision 
is to prepare them for what is to come through education so 
that everyone can understand their own role, especially as 
climate change creates an environment where changing seasons 
will make food production more difficult and where a changing 
world will take competing interests for natural resources into 
uncharted territory.
    Our vision is to create a thriving, sustainable enterprise 
where employment opportunities are available to support healthy 
neighborhoods and sustainable agriculture. Infrastructure for 
food waste management within an urban setting means reducing 
our overall carbon footprint, while our high visibility and 
community outreach will create markets for a variety of 
products. The new generation of powerful electric trucks 
manufactured in Michigan will further support our vision of 
transporting food waste and generating zero emissions.
    The challenges of climate change mean that we must invest 
in innovation and creativity. While our work is measurable, we 
know some aspects extend far beyond those matters that are 
measurable or tangible. Supporting our community is a large 
part of our vision. We understand the value of citizenship and 
the responsibility of service to our community. To this end, I 
am in support of the legislation, the Recycling Infrastructure 
and Accessibility Act of 2022, as well as the Recycling and 
Composting Accountability Act.
    I would like to add a few comments. When we speak about 
innovation, I, for the last 10 years, have been primarily 
focusing on replacing landfills and bringing education around 
anaerobic digestion and vessel technology and other 
technologies that we can actually make byproducts. If we think 
about the methane when we bury food waste in the landfills, 
that carbon not only should be recycled, but when we look at 
the innovation of technologies that can capture that energy and 
use it for heating buildings, fuel, and other byproducts, this 
is imperative.
    I believe that, across the country and the world, we are 
having issues around education. If more of our people 
understand, in vulnerable communities that are impacted, what 
composting means, what recycling means, and translating 
science, this is the low hanging fruit of actually impacting 
climate change. Because it is not just about recycling our 
carbon cycles. This is actually about creating and 
manufacturing byproducts that we can create markets and retail, 
which is something I am very excited about, so we will get into 
that later. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Murray follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Carper. Thank you for that p.s., and for joining us 
today, and your testimony.
    Next, we are going to hear from Ben Harvey, I think, 
remotely.
    Ben Harvey, we are delighted that you can join us, and 
would ask you to just proceed, please. Thank you.

                 STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN HARVEY, 
             PRESIDENT, E.L. HARVEY AND SONS, INC.

    Mr. Harvey. Thank you.
    Good morning, Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Capito and 
members of the Committee. My name is Ben Harvey, and I am 
President of Westborough, Massachusetts, based E.L. Harvey and 
Sons, Inc., a full service waste and recycling firm servicing 
residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers 
throughout eastern New England.
    I am testifying today in my capacity as Chairman of the 
National Waste and Recycling Association, which represents the 
private sector waste and recycling industry that is essential 
to maintaining the quality of American life.
    I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 
Committee today and present you with the industry perspective 
on recycling infrastructure and accessibility and discuss its 
impact on us.
    Ensuring that all Americans have access to recycling 
provides sustainable materials management across the Nation. 
Rural areas have unique challenges collecting recyclables and 
accessing recycling markets, leaving many communities 
underserved.
    Recycling has become increasingly complex over the past 20 
years. To manage the growing diversity of materials, material 
recovery facilities, or MRFs, must have more and increasingly 
sophisticated equipment.
    Today's MRFs do not just have magnets, eddy current 
separators, and screens. They include optical sorters and 
robots. To account for the increasing equipment costs, today's 
modern MRFs are larger and service regions rather than single 
communities. They are increasingly run by private sector 
companies that can adapt quickly to the changing makeup of 
packaging.
    These attributes make recycling in rural communities 
particularly challenging. MRFs are sited near population 
centers sometimes great distances from rural communities. 
Rather than curbside collection, rural residential recycling 
often consists of drop off programs or private sector 
subscription programs, with limited participation. Once 
recyclables are collected, transporting the materials to 
processing facilities and ultimately, to end markets, 
represents another hurdle.
    However, rural recycling can achieve success through the 
hub and spoke model, which creates consolidation hubs that 
service small communities. These transfer stations are where 
smaller truckloads of materials are consolidated into larger 
truckloads for their final transfer to processing facilities. 
Rural communities interested in adopting such a model would 
benefit from grants for transfer station infrastructure 
construction and recycling tractor trailers and transfer 
trailers to move the material.
    Hub and spoke systems reduce transportation and provide 
much needed operational efficiency to make recycling viable for 
rural areas. That is why I was encouraged by the approach 
undertaken by Senator Capito's legislation. The private and 
public sector usually benefit from a model where public sector 
can efficiently collect materials from rural areas and transfer 
them to privately operated MRFs for processing. Privately 
operated MRFs typically share revenues from the sale of the 
processed recyclables with the communities that bring the 
materials to them. We wholeheartedly support a program where 
rural communities can access the global recycling markets.
    Whatever we do needs to be undergirded with good data. 
Recycling, composting, and waste composition has changed 
significantly over time. Paper and cardboard have long made up 
the largest component of our recyclables, but this has changed 
significantly with newspapers now only a third of where it was 
in 2005, and cardboard boxes from households increasing due to 
what we call the Amazon effect.
    Food waste has become the largest part of what ends up in 
landfills, and disposal of clothing has doubled over the last 
20 years.
    As a businessman, it is important for me to be able to make 
decisions founded on good data. That is why I am also pleased 
to support the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act that 
empowers EPA to perform the studies that we need.
    Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Capito, 
for this opportunity to testify today. I will be happy to 
respond to any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Harvey follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Carper. Mr. Harvey, thank you so much. I know that 
Senator Capito also appreciates your testimony and your 
presence. Thanks for joining us remotely.
    Batting cleanup, Mr. Levell Hairston; I am going to ask you 
to go ahead and give us your opening statement. Levell, thanks 
so much for coming.

   STATEMENT OF CHARLES LEVELL HAIRSTON, VICE PRESIDENT AND 
      GENERAL MANAGER FOR RECYCLING AND RECOVERED FIBER, 
                      INTERNATIONAL PAPER

    Mr. Hairston. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 
Capito, and Senator Boozman, and distinguished members of the 
Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My 
name is Levell Hairston, and I am the Vice President and 
General Manager of Recycling for International Paper.
    We are a leading global supplier of renewable, fiber based 
products, which includes corrugated packaging products and pulp 
for diapers, tissue, and other personal care products. We are 
headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, and employ approximately 
27,000 colleagues in the U.S.
    In our business, recovered fiber refers to paper and fiber 
based packaging products that have served their primary purpose 
and are now ready to be collected and recycled. In addition to 
manufacturing, International Paper recovers more than 7 million 
tons of recovered fiber annually.
    In 2020, International Paper released a Vision 2030 goal, 
which demonstrated our commitments to building a better future 
for people, the planet, and the company. These goals are 
detailed in my written statement.
    As a company that truly embraces the concept of a circular 
economy, our renewable solution goal includes a target to 
create innovative products that are 100 percent reusable, 
recyclable, or compostable, a metric designed to accelerate the 
transition to a low carbon economy throughout the company's 
value chain.
    I am pleased to share our support of the Recycling and 
Composting Accountability Act and the Recycling Infrastructure 
and Accessibility Act today, and to add some insights into 
International Paper's recycling business and the papers 
industry's commitment to circularity and sustainable practices.
    End markets for recovered paper products are strong, and 
thanks to the significant private investments by our industry 
over the past decades and established value chain of our 
customers. We support market based approaches, like the 
provisions in these two bills, to improve the Nation's 
recycling system.
    The paper industry is a leader in recycling. According to 
the EPA, by weight, more paper is recovered for recycling from 
municipal waste streams than plastic, glass, steel, and 
aluminum. Paper recycling rates have continuously grown over 
recent decades and remain consistently high, at or above 63 
percent since 2009.
    In 2020, nearly 66 percent of the paper and 89 percent of 
the corrugated boxes were recycled. The paper industry has 
planned or announced approximately $5 billion in manufacturing 
infrastructure investments by the end of 2023 to continue to 
best use of recycled fiber in our products. These investments 
will help increase the amount of recovered paper used by U.S. 
paper and paperboard mills by approximately 8 million tons, 
which would represent about a 25 percent increase in U.S. 
recovered paper consumption over the 2020 levels.
    Legislation like the Recycling and Composting 
Accountability Act would help companies like International 
Paper reach our goals. As a data driven company, we understand 
to improve something, you must be able to measure it. 
International Paper proudly developed these goals, and it will 
take resources, like in this bill's data finding, to help us 
achieve them.
    Our industry prioritizes data collection to improve 
recycling rates. The American Forest and Paper Association has 
completed two key data projects in the last year. This includes 
AF&PA's Access to Recycling Study, which found that 94 percent 
of Americans have access to community paper or paperboard 
recycling programs. The study also finds that 79 percent of 
Americans now have access to curbside residential recycling 
programs, making it easier for them to recycle at home. This 
represents an increase of more than 14 million people since the 
2014 study was done.
    Second, last year, AF&PA released a design guidance for 
recyclability. The guide provides data for packaging designers 
and consumer brands to better understand how non-fiber elements 
such as coatings and additives impact the recyclability of 
paper based packaging. This is another example of our 
industry's commitment to circularity.
    We appreciate that Senator Boozman's and Chairman Carper's 
bill supports EPA's national recycling strategy and 
acknowledges that industrial efforts are part of the circular 
economy. We strongly support the provision that requires EPA to 
conduct a study of recyclable materials in commercial and 
municipal waste streams that, for the previous 10 years, were 
diverted from the circular market. We believe studies like this 
will highlight the strong recycling rates of the paper 
industry, and it will also help identify that we are close to a 
practical maximum and that more regulation is not needed to be 
able to increase paper recycling rates.
    Senator Capito's bill to help increase recovered materials 
used by industries and access to communities without MRFs, or 
material recovery facilities, is also important. Without clean 
material, for us, it is hard for us to serve the needs of both 
the growing e-commerce and customer needs for our essential 
businesses.
    Again, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Hairston follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Carper. Thanks very much for your testimony, 
Levell.
    Let me ask a couple of questions, and then I will yield to 
Senator Capito. She will be followed by Senator Whitehouse, 
Senator Boozman, and Senator Stabenow, and then by others as 
they join us, remotely or in person.
    Question to start off with, Rhodes Yepsen. Mr. Yepsen, with 
respect to curbside composting data, you mentioned in your 
testimony that your organization has been working on tracking 
residential composting programs, I think you said, for nearly a 
decade. Yet significant data gaps remain. How would a study of 
curbside programs at the Federal level help eliminate existing 
data gaps and arm communities with the information they need to 
set up successful composting programs? Please proceed.
    Mr. Yepsen. Yes, thank you for that question. I was 
fortunate early in my career to work with BioCycle Magazine on 
some of that data tracking for residential curbside composting 
programs, and yes, while I have been working on it for a little 
over a decade, BioCycle has been at it for many decades. I 
think what I would like to highlight is that, as we heard 
earlier from Senator Capito, there are a lot of trade 
publications; WasteDive is one of them.
    So, part of the challenge is in collecting the data, and 
part of it is how does that information get out to the public. 
As a publication, BioCycle does wonderful investigative 
journalism, contacting States and municipalities to get that 
data collected, collate it, and then report back out on it.
    However, there is a big distinction between that and what 
we see with something like the EPA facts and figures. Those 
reports are incredibly important for standardizing the type of 
data that is collected and for getting that information out to 
the wider public. So I think that is the main thing that I 
would highlight, that is how this would help fill that data 
gap.
    Senator Carper. OK, thank you very much.
    Next question to Ms. Murray. This question is with respect 
to the national composting strategy and carbon reduction. As I 
mentioned, my wife and I are avid home composters and have been 
for some time. I am deeply interested in the role that reducing 
our food waste could play in conserving space in our landfills 
and reducing the harmful methane emissions that contribute to 
climate change.
    Delaware is not a big State. We are about 100 miles from 
north to south, about 50 miles from east to west, and we need 
all the land we have. We have got about a million people, so we 
don't need to create more and more space for a lot of 
landfills. We need to figure out how to compost and recycle.
    I think that this is an issue of social justice as well, as 
30 to 40 percent of our Nation's food supply is wasted, while 
nearly 14 million Americans, many of whom are children, 
experience food insecurity. With these potential benefits in 
mind, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act would 
direct the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a study 
on the capability of the United States to implement a national 
residential composting strategy. The question is this: What do 
you see as the potential benefits of creating a national 
composting strategy?
    Ms. Murray. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I have 
been waiting for years to have someone address these issues.
    Senator Carper. The wait is over.
    Ms. Murray. Hallelujah.
    Senator Carper. The day has come.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Murray. And it being bipartisan, this is amazing.
    First, I would like to say that if we really break the 
waste stream down and look at the economics of what the waste 
stream really is and the value of how much we are burying in 
landfills, that should actually create a red flag right there, 
because there is over $200 billion of food waste being wasted 
annually in this country alone. So first of all, we need to 
make sure that the education and the awareness around this is 
just very crucial and imperative.
    But it is the byproducts that can be made from this. In the 
past history, people have been interested in the tipping fees 
and creating sites where they are looking at the front end of 
how much money they can make by discarding the waste, but it is 
not waste. It is a resource. Composting is actually healthy for 
soils, for our landscapes, our urban landscapes, for water 
runoff, et cetera.
    We have to look at the market and actually, on a national 
level, of creating retail and wholesale markets around this 
product as well. When you walk into a Home Depot or a grocery 
store, you have all these chemical fertilizers and chemically 
based products that we have to replace. There is no need to do 
that. We have the technology to actually create byproducts that 
can replace those chemically based products.
    And it is also healthy for not just the environment, but 
also we are looking at the economic benefit of that. I also 
would like to say that the more access we have to sites, 
whether they are boutique sites of two to three acres or a 
larger composting site, we have to look at the energy embedded 
in this, as well. When you truck compost or waste 30, 40 miles 
outside of the city, that is a lot of energy wasted. When you 
create a closed loop cycle or a closed loop market within an 
urban community or a rural community, you are actually keeping 
those products within that circular economy, which is a great 
benefit. So we are looking at social, economic, and 
environmental impacts.
    The key here is, at Detroit Dirt, we wanted to be able to 
display the fact that we could take manure from the zoo, food 
waste from automotive communities, and keep that product right 
in the community for urban farming, for people to purchase, but 
also reducing emissions. So I think a national campaign around 
education and implementing these practices and doing away with 
antiquated practices is key. We have technologies, weather 
permitting, whatever region we are in, to actually divert that 
waste and create byproducts from that.
    So I think we have to look at the energy embedded in that. 
We also have to look at, you know, creating the circular 
economy or local economy and the benefits. But I think on a 
national level, if we can look at a few factors here, making 
sure that we have education and awareness for the general 
public. Creating curriculum for K-12 schools, we are doing that 
in Michigan right now. I think that that is crucial when our 
youth and younger students can see themselves playing a role in 
this. That is key because they can take that home to their 
households.
    But I also think that when we start building these new 
markets to pinpoint what products we can replace that are on 
the market that is doing more harm, but also, when we are 
looking at reducing or omitting emissions, that is something, 
to me, from a moral and just ethical standpoint is key. So, I 
think, at the end of the day, socially, economically, and 
environmentally, we are taking a step forward in a positive 
direction.
    Senator Carper. Great. Thank you. Thanks for all of that. 
You read my mind. I had one more question I was going to ask 
you, and you have answered it without it being asked, so thank 
you for that.
    Now, it is Senator Capito's turn. She will be followed by 
Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Capito.
    Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank all of you for being here again.
    I have a question for Mr. Harvey. Your family's company 
operates and provides recycling services in rural areas in New 
England. Can you explain why certain regions within New England 
have the infrastructure, geography, or special characteristics 
that enable curbside recycling, and why other areas in that 
region may not have that?
    Mr. Harvey. It comes down to the density of the 
municipality that we operate in. Our industry is all about 
density, and it is all about volume. We need to be able to send 
our trucks out in a dense area, and we need to collect the 
recyclables or the trash in one truck and bring it back to a 
central location. We want volume. So when you have a highly 
populated area, it is much easier to do curbside recycling.
    When you get into rural areas, even in the State of 
Massachusetts or in New England when you go up into northern 
New England, it is so much harder to send that truck out and 
collect the material. We send two trucks out a lot of times. 
What the industry has started to do is to start to use what we 
call split bodies, so we are only sending one truck out at a 
time to do it.
    But even in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where we 
operate, we have feeder transfer stations that feed into our 
MRF in central Massachusetts. And we need those. We need those 
feeder systems to come in and make it profitable for us to run 
our MRFs.
    So we run into the same aspects, not quite as rural as West 
Virginia or Oklahoma or some of the other States, but that is 
the biggest reason. It is density.
    Senator Capito. Right. Well, so, investments, you 
mentioned, and I think you have already answered this, in 
transportation and other mechanisms for increasing collection 
and transportation would be long term solutions for rural; do 
you think those would be long term solutions for our rural 
communities, then?
    Mr. Harvey. Definitely, it would be, yes. Yes.
    Senator Capito. OK, so our previous witness, Ms. Murray, 
was talking about a circular economy, so if you were looking at 
a transfer station system, such as you have, would you consider 
that a circular economy way of dealing with recycling?
    Mr. Harvey. I think the circular economy goes from the 
collection to the processing to the marketing and then turning 
it back into another product. So, collection and the processing 
are only one-half of that or one part of that. We still need 
the outlets for the materials. We still need to establish good, 
solid markets, which we have worked hard for years to establish 
those.
    We need to be able to collect the materials, but at the end 
of the day, we need to be able to ship them out to consumers, 
wherever they may be, domestically or export, wherever that 
market is. We need to do that to close the whole loop.
    Senator Capito. Are those markets increasing for you now, 
or are they static? What is the state of the aftermarket, after 
it has been processed?
    Mr. Harvey. That is a very good question. We have certainly 
had some issues when China stopped accepting a lot of our 
recyclable materials. We have been very fortunate since that 
time that our domestic mills have picked up the need for more 
materials. You heard the gentleman from IP say about all the 
tons that they handle.
    So, yes, the markets right now are actually pretty robust. 
They have fallen off a little bit from where they were at the 
end of calendar 2021, but they are still fairly robust. Another 
reason why we need to get into these areas that are 
underserviced and collect those recyclables is because there is 
a need and a desire to use those materials currently.
    Senator Capito. Right.
    Senator Carper. Senator Capito, can I interrupt for just 
one moment?
    Senator Capito. Oh, sure.
    Senator Carper. We all serve on different committees. Some 
of them are in session right now. I am being summoned to come 
to the Homeland Security Committee for a business meeting. They 
need my vote, so I am going to slip away for a while.
    Senator Capito [presiding]. So you just need to recycle 
back over here. I got that one in before you could.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Just a quick question for Mr. Hairston on the data 
collection. The most recent Recycling Economic Information 
Report from EPA was released in November 2020, but it was 
relying on 8 year old data from 2012. I know in my own 
community, the ebbs and flows of recycling have been very 
apparent, a lot of it depending on the age of the facility that 
can recycle, the will of the municipal government, the 
available funds, the participation of the residents, all kinds 
of things. If this legislation were to become law and improve 
EPA's recycling data, what insights do you think we would be 
able to gain from analyzing this data?
    Mr. Hairston. Thanks, Senator.
    When we think about the data, again, when you think about 
the forest products industry, and you think about what we do, 
we have a very strong and historical track record of investing 
in this infrastructure. We do a great job of collecting that 
product and bringing it back.
    The opportunity for us is how to make sure we are accessing 
all the fiber available. So when I think about this study and 
what it will do is, even the data that we do as AF&PA is a 
sample. The data that EPA will be able to do will give us a 
more detailed view of the country and the breakdown and truly 
be able to identify where those opportunities are to be able to 
collect that fiber, collect those recyclable materials and get 
them back to some end use to make a new product. So I see the 
data as being very valuable in helping both public and private 
sectors understand where the opportunities are to drive a 
circular economy.
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
    Thank you, everyone, for being here.
    It strikes me that we have slightly different recycling 
markets for newsprint, for paper, for glass, for compost, and 
for plastics. I would like to focus on plastics, because I 
think we have a real failure happening in the plastics 
recycling market.
    In theory, this should be a pretty vibrant market because 
we are seeing immense public pressure on the plastics industry 
to clean up its act, particularly in regard to waste that ends 
up in the oceans and in our rivers. We are seeing, frankly, 
outright bans on certain single use plastics, sending what you 
would think would be a strong message to the industry to clean 
up its act.
    There is considerable reputational risk for these companies 
as the propagators of the material that ends up around some 
turtle's neck in the sea somewhere. So you would think that the 
conditions would be about as good as they can be for a 
corporate response with respect to recycling plastic instead of 
just churning out new plastic.
    In fact, the numbers tell a completely different story. If 
you look at single use plastic, which is the stuff most likely 
to end up in the ocean, in a whale's belly, tangled around a 
coral reef, the industry, by my information, has managed to 
achieve a grand 2 percent recycling component for single use 
plastics, 2 percent. I mean, that is probably the number you 
would get by accident. Under all that pressure, the best they 
can do is 2 percent.
    So, something needs to change if this is going to get 
serious. Everything tells me that the reason industry is still 
at 2 percent, despite all this pressure, is that the real 
decision driver is dollars, and it is cheaper to buy new 
nurdles of plastic and put out your single use plastic items 
than it is to buy recycled plastic. Therefore, the industry 
spurns recycled plastic, despite all that public pressure, 
because of the pressure of cost.
    So, it seems to me, that is a really simple gateway to a 
solution to the problem to get us above 2 percent. If you look 
at it at our blue bins, I have blue bins that we fill with 
recycling. The record that I think we have on actual recycling, 
when an American goes to their blue bin and takes the soda 
bottles and the plastic waste from their household and actually 
puts it in the blue bin, is less than 10 percent.
    Most likely, 6 to 8 percent of that actually gets recycled. 
More than 90 percent of it doesn't actually get recycled. It is 
almost at the level of being a scam on the consumers who, in 
good faith, are putting their plastics in those blue bins and 
aren't being told that the industry isn't recycling that stuff. 
A lot of it is simply being packed up and put into the dump. A 
lot of it is simply being packed up and shipped overseas to be 
put into open air dumps and end up in the rivers and end up in 
the oceans, and go on from there.
    The responsibility of the industry for getting above 2 
percent in terms of recycled content for single use plastics 
and for doing better than having more than 90 percent of what 
we actually put into those blue recycling bins be recycled 
ought to be a lot higher. They ought to be accountable for 
those, I would say, catastrophic failures verging on being a 
fraud on the public.
    So, I am hoping that we can work together not just to 
measure the disastrous state of plastics recycling, but to 
solve it. And I would really appreciate it if each of the 
witnesses would take a minute when this hearing is over, and 
take this as a question for the record and give me your ideas 
and suggestions as to what needs to be done to solve this 
dilemma of total plastics recycling failure that we are stuck 
in. I think it is purely cost, and I think if you are not going 
to put any kind of a price on dumping the plastic, any kind of 
a price on any type of an equivalence for recycled plastic 
versus new plastic, we are just never, ever, ever going to 
solve this.
    We can talk our way around this problem forever, but the 
dollars drive the decisions, in my view. I would like your 
response to that, if you don't mind putting it in writing, so 
that I don't take up more time in the hearing. I appreciate it. 
Thank you.
    Senator Capito. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Boozman.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you.
    Mr. Hairston, Arkansas is proud to have two major companies 
willing to set voluntary sustainability goals. Walmart set a 
goal to achieve zero waste in their operations and reach 100 
percent recyclable, reusable, or industrial compostable private 
brand packaging by 2025, while Tyson Foods' transition from 
virgin fiber paperboard to 100 percent post-consumer recycled 
content across their Jimmy Dean brand and launch zero waste to 
landfill pilot programs at three production facilities, 
diverting nearly 5.2 million pounds of waste from their 
landfills, which was a 60 percent increase from the previous 
year.
    Mr. Hairston, how will the Recycling and Composting 
Accountability Act help companies like Walmart, Tyson Foods, 
others that are working hard in this area as they try and meet 
their needs?
    Mr. Hairston. Thanks for the question, Senator.
    Again, I go back to your companies that you referenced. 
Just like International Paper, we have some pretty strict goals 
out there, and we believe that we can achieve those goals. One 
of the challenges and opportunities as we try to get there is 
understanding what is impacting circularity. The first piece 
is, you want to be able to have packaging or a material that is 
circular, meaning that it is recyclable, it is reusable, or it 
is compostable. Once we do that, the next question has to be, 
is it coming back around?
    The thing that this act is going to do for us, it is going 
to help identify and help point out clarity, where the gaps 
are, so that we can take responsible actions with our private 
and public partners to be able to figure out how to continue to 
drive toward that 100 percent goal.
    Senator Boozman. Very good.
    Mr. Hairston, oftentimes, companies implement 
sustainability programs because it fits within their mission 
statement or core beliefs. But sometimes companies develop 
innovative sustainability practices because it makes economic 
sense to do so.
    Can you give us some examples of the private sector 
investing in sustainability practices to protect the 
environment while also helping their bottom line? This is 
really what Senator Whitehouse was alluding to, and it is very, 
very important.
    Mr. Hairston. Yes, I think it is definitely a good 
question, and I think you are always able to meet that momentum 
and drive when you can figure out a way to have both an 
economic and social solution.
    At International Paper, we are integrating our 
sustainability goals and targets into our strategy, into our 
capital plan, and operating plans. This will ensure that we 
create that long term value for our shareholders, and we 
operate a business that drives and delivers a sustainable 
outcome.
    We are not afraid to innovate in this space to meet the 
market demands and to advance the vision to build a better 
future for both the people, the planet, and our company. A 
recent service that we developed that meets this triple bottom 
line, people, planet, and profit, is a system that we call 
eBOSS. eBOSS is a service that we provide to our customers. My 
service focuses on analyzing the customer needs and being able 
to understand their shipping history and box utilization to 
then suggest to them the right size box to one, reduce their 
cost for packaging, and two, ensure that they have a solution 
that is recyclable or reusable.
    Those are some ways that, again, we are able to one, meet 
our goals of sustainability and a circular market, and at the 
same time, being able to help reduce costs and drive economic 
benefits for the companies that we are working with.
    Senator Boozman. Right. As you allude to, paper recycling 
rates are one of the great success stories within the industry, 
with an approximate 66 percent recycling rate, and 94 percent 
of Americans having access to community paper recycling 
programs. Additionally, 80 percent of the U.S. population has 
access to community recycling programs that accept pizza boxes.
    What are some lessons other commodities could learn from 
the paper industry to improve their rates, again, going back to 
the very important question that Senator Whitehouse raised?
    Mr. Hairston. Yes, again, I think it continues to go back 
to, we believe in producer responsibility, and we continue to 
show our commitment with our investments over our last three 
decades. And as we continue to meet the needs of our customers, 
working together as an industry is important.
    The pizza box recyclability was a concern that, as an 
industry, we put our heads together and said, how can we 
resolve that issue? What is a concern that is out there, and 
how can we manage that in a way that can truly allow that box 
to be recycled? I think that collaborative effort is the way 
that you improve. That has worked well for the forest products 
industry, and I think it is something that other industries 
should look at if they are having difficulties.
    Senator Boozman. Very good. Thank you.
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Senator Stabenow.
    Senator Stabenow. Thank you very much, and thank you to all 
of our witnesses today.
    Ms. Murray, in the 2018 Farm Bill, I championed the 
Composting and Food Waste Reduction pilot project under the 
Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovation Production. I am so 
glad to see the work that you are doing in Michigan and in 
Detroit. Working with my partner, Senator Boozman, I am looking 
forward to building on that work in the next Farm Bill and 
focusing on supporting composting activities and decreasing 
food waste.
    What types of barriers has Detroit Dirt faced in its 
efforts to transport food waste and process it into compost?
    Ms. Murray. Thank you, Senator, for that question.
    Some of the barriers have been--well, there are multiple 
barriers, but over the years, we have experienced 
transportation from food banks to homeless shelters and folks 
that could actually use the food. At first, it was an insurance 
issue. A lot of people were concerned about insurance. But with 
stadiums, restaurants, and any type of manufacturer of food, a 
lot of times, that excess food is getting dumped into landfills 
or burned in incinerators, because they don't have enough 
companies to actually transport that excess material.
    So I think there is an opportunity to build on that and 
have more companies that are transporting and logistics to help 
fill those voids.
    Some of the other challenges have been with education. We 
have simply--we feel like we have to go above and beyond with 
education. Because the municipalities, I think, at times, what 
happens is we focus on food waste, but we look past other low 
hanging fruit, such as yard waste, and the municipalities 
actually can buy back, when I speak about the circular economy, 
and we talk about markets, some of the municipalities on a 
State and as well as local level can purchase that product 
back. They are already buying supplies or materials or 
resources from other sources. They can buy back compost and 
process yard waste as well. So we have to look at those 
barriers.
    I just think it is a matter of bridging the gap and 
understanding what the byproducts are and the value.
    At General Motors, when we ran a pilot with the Detroit Zoo 
and General Motors and Blue Cross Blue Shield, they bought a 
lot of the compost back for their landscape, and they weren't 
really thinking about that. But landscapers and other 
municipalities with yard waste and food waste or other 
products, but I think the other challenge is just making sure 
that people understand what food waste is, because they get a 
little bit scared about the ick factor of it. That is why I 
think that education is the key, bringing awareness, so they 
understand how to compost.
    Senator Stabenow. Right. Thank you so much. This is an 
exciting area, I think, for all of us to be working in.
    Let me ask, Mr. Hairston, you mentioned in your testimony, 
and Senator Boozman indicated as well, that the 2020 paper 
recycling rate was just about 66 percent, 65.7 percent. That is 
really amazing. I also want to agree with Senator Whitehouse 
that plastics recycling is woefully inadequate.
    So, I really appreciate overall what the industry has done. 
Your industry has recovered more than 47 million tons of paper 
for recycling. But even with those impressive numbers, I know 
you are pushing to go even higher, which is very important. So, 
with that in mind, I introduce the PAPER Act that prevents 
waste energy facilities from earning a tax credit for burning 
recyclable paper.
    Could you talk about the importance of recovered fibers to 
your company and whether eliminating a tax incentive for 
burning paper would increase the recycling opportunities for 
the paper industry?
    Mr. Hairston. Thanks, Senator.
    International Paper supports the PAPER Act. The bill will 
help ensure that the Federal production tax credit protects the 
integrity of recovered fiber stream so that paper recycling can 
continue to be an environmental success story.
    When we think about the recycling, in general recycling, it 
has been able to take something that has completed its primary 
use and be able to collect that and reuse it in a similar 
fashion going forward. We do think that, again, being able to 
do that in the paper industry, we have shown that that is 
important.
    One thing that I said in my opening statement is $5 billion 
of investment, 8 million tons increase, that is going to 
happen. We are going to need that fiber. So being able to have 
all the fiber available to support that industry, support 
sustainable packaging for the customers, is going to be 
important to drive the circular economy going forward.
    Senator Stabenow. Thank you very much.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Well, for our witnesses, I am going to ask a few more 
questions in anticipation of our Chairman coming back in.
    I see Senator Kelly, so we will wait just a second.
    If you are ready, Senator Kelly, or I can ask a question.
    Senator Kelly. Ready to go.
    Senator Capito. Ready to go. Just like a good astronaut 
would be. Thank you. Sorry to rush you, there.
    Senator Kelly [presiding]. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and 
thank you for holding this hearing today.
    This question is for Mr. Harvey, who I believe is remote.
    Mr. Harvey, I appreciated that you took time in your 
testimony to discuss the unique challenges rural communities 
face when establishing and sustaining recycling programs. And I 
appreciate that both of the bills we are discussing today take 
steps to address these challenges.
    Many rural communities want to offer curbside recycling 
programs, but in recent years, it has gotten increasingly 
challenging for these programs to make financial sense. For 
example, in 2019 the city of Sierra Vista in Arizona was forced 
to end their curbside recycling program because they had to 
ship their recyclables nearly 200 miles to Phoenix, and then 
the numbers, the math, the financials on this just didn't add 
up. In the past 3 years, seven cities in Arizona have ended 
curbside recycling.
    Mr. Harvey, can you expand upon your testimony about the 
costs that rural and disadvantaged communities face when they 
must choose whether to ship recyclables tens or hundreds of 
miles to the nearest processing facility or to end recycling 
programs? And then what can the Federal Government do to 
support recycling in rural areas?
    Mr. Harvey. Thank you. I think what the biggest issue 
facing us is certainly the cost to collect, transport, and 
process.
    When we ran into this situation where China was not 
accepting any of our material, the recycling markets throughout 
the world collapsed. They went negative on us. There was no 
value for the materials that we were collecting.
    So we had to institute, in a lot of cases, we instituted 
processing costs at our MRFs, where before, we didn't have to 
do that because the value of those recyclables after we process 
them covered that. It doesn't matter what materials that you 
put in a truck; it costs money to send that down the road. It 
costs money to buy special trucks to collect the recyclables. 
It costs money to buy the tractor trailers to transport now 
from a satellite facility to a MRF. It costs to process that 
material, and then it costs to ship it out to the consuming 
mills.
    So all of those costs can add up significantly, depending 
on what part of the country that you are in. That is why I 
think you are facing these issues right now. As we start to get 
into a more robust marketplace with recyclables, hopefully we 
will see some of those costs come down, and I think that this 
is where we need the support of the Federal Government to come 
in and subsidize, maybe, in some of these situations where it 
is costing a municipality too much money to transport and 
process those recyclables.
    Senator Kelly. Mr. Harvey, what within the market could 
change to result in a more robust market for recyclables?
    Mr. Harvey. I guess the easy answer to that would be a 
guaranteed price for what we get paid for the materials that we 
process. But it doesn't. It fluctuates. It is a very supply and 
demand basis, and it fluctuates on that supply and demand.
    If we knew that every day for the next 10 years, we were 
going to receive a certain threshold of price for the 
materials, then at least we would know what we would have. But 
we have to be able to adapt to that pricing and make changes in 
our systems to adapt to that pricing.
    Senator Kelly. Is the only way for that to happen is that 
there needs to be some support from the Federal Government, or 
is there another free market scenario where that could come to 
pass?
    Mr. Harvey. I don't see anything happening in the free 
marketplace, and I am a free marketplace guy. I built my 
business; I have been doing this for 50 years, and we have 
ridden it up, and we have ridden it down, and I believe in the 
free marketplace, but there is no guarantee in the free 
marketplace. So that is the only issue that we deal with.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Harvey.
    If the Senator from Alaska is ready--I have one more 
question. I will go over the time, unless you are ready right 
now.
    Senator Sullivan. No, go ahead.
    Senator Kelly. All right.
    This question is for Mr. Yepsen. One of the biggest 
challenges recycling programs face right now is finding end 
markets for recyclable materials and finished compost. In fact, 
one of the leading challenges I hear from communities in 
Arizona who are struggling to maintain recycling programs or 
beginning composting programs is that it is costly to find 
buyers willing to take a finished product. That is why I 
appreciate the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act, 
which takes the first steps to address this problem through a 
comprehensive study on the end markets for recyclable and 
composted materials.
    Mr. Yepsen, can you expand upon why this study could be so 
groundbreaking, and has anything like this been done before?
    Mr. Yepsen. I do think it would be groundbreaking. There 
has been some research done on end markets for finished 
compost. The U.S. Composting Council has published reports on 
this and really advocates for different markets, and has case 
studies around use for things like the Department of 
Transportation, which has really helped spec compost into 
Department of Transportation projects.
    I think, as we heard also earlier from Pashon, we see more 
and more efforts from whether that is a business or a community 
that is trying to divert their food scraps and yard trimmings 
to compost, also committing to buying that back. So we know 
that whether it is a corporate campus that has a composting 
program and has grounds, or a municipality that has landscaping 
needs.
    And I think that having a Federal level tracking of this 
would be really helpful, because I think it is oftentimes just 
that composting is so new that a lot of communities don't have 
an understanding of just how many varieties of avenues that 
that finished compost could be used in.
    Senator Kelly. How many communities nationwide actually 
have composting programs? Do you know by percentage?
    Mr. Yepsen. For yard trimmings composting, the number is 
fairly large, but it is seasonal in most places for yard 
trimmings collection. So there are around 4,700 composting 
facilities taking yard trimmings. But the number is much 
smaller when it comes to food scraps composting and really 
robust curbside programs, and that is less than 10 percent of 
the population.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you.
    The Senator from Alaska.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
    This is an area that actually has a lot of bipartisan 
support. When you are helping us think through solutions, I 
want you to try and help us think through what would be 
bipartisan solutions.
    Let me give you an example. Senator Whitehouse, I know, has 
already asked some questions about plastics. You may have seen, 
he and I have been putting forward legislation that has been 
very strongly supported. The Save Our Seas Act, the Save Our 
Seas 2.0 Act have all been passed and signed into law, and now 
we are working on implementations.
    So let me ask Mr. Harvey and Mr. Hairston. Give me your 
thoughts, quickly, particularly really following up on Senator 
Whitehouse's question earlier about plastics and what you see 
as a bipartisan approach. You think you guys have a sense of 
what that would be? I am not looking for big, top down mandates 
and taxes, but there are other things that I think can achieve 
a lot of broad based support here on an issue that, in many 
ways, is a uniting issue. The oceans clean up, ocean plastic 
issue certainly is one here in the Senate.
    Do you have any thoughts on those, in terms of plastics in 
particular? Mr. Hairston, we will start with you.
    Mr. Hairston. Yes, thanks, Senator, for the question.
    I spoke to it a little earlier. As we think about 
addressing those issues, I think coming from a fiber based 
industry, and what have we done, and what are the things that 
have been successful for us. We believe, one, honestly, that 
the producers have a responsibility. Over our three decades, we 
have been focusing on infrastructure investments to help drive 
that piece. The recycling rate for cardboard continues to be 
high.
    Senator Sullivan. Why is that high, and it is not high in 
other areas? Do you guys know, or have a sense?
    Mr. Hairston. I can't speak to what is driving the 
economics of plastic. I can speak to the things that we see in 
the fiber based, where we have a local commodity that is 
collected that has global demand, and we have been able to 
leverage that to provide sustainable, fiber based packaging for 
our customers. And we think that that continues as an 
opportunity. Exactly what is the problem with plastic, I can't 
speak to. I don't feel comfortable speaking to it at this time.
    Senator Sullivan. OK.
    Mr. Harvey, do you have a sense on the questions that I 
posed?
    Mr. Harvey. So, I am having just a little bit of trouble 
hearing, but you are talking about plastics, and a solution. 
From our standpoint, we are kind of like, in the middle. We 
don't manufacture it, and we don't use it. We just kind of pick 
it up and process it.
    But I will tell you, in all my years of doing this, there 
has been a tremendous amount of confusion on what is and isn't 
recyclable and the different types of resins that are 
available. And it is very, very difficult when these 
manufacturers keep coming out with new products and a different 
resin that looks the same as maybe something else [audio gap] 
sorted out, and our opticals can't, either.
    So again, I think a lot of what will happen, I think this 
accessibility that we need to get into these rural areas is 
going to help that. If we can collect those materials and not 
dispose of them or throw them out the window of a car or throw 
them into a creek that now it ends up in the ocean, it is the 
accessibility and it is going after these robust programs and 
getting them working.
    Senator Sullivan. Great.
    Let me ask a follow up question, Ms. Murray, maybe you can 
lead off on it. It relates to what Mr. Harvey just mentioned, 
and then if anyone else wants to jump in.
    My State is a very big State in terms of size, but a pretty 
small population, so about 70 percent of the households do not 
have access to curbside recycling. So, how do you bring 
recycling infrastructure to many parts of the country that 
don't have it, particularly big, rural, spread out parts with 
limited or spread out populations?
    Then related, I think it is related, does the answer to 
that question also have something to do with to what degree you 
think the emphasis should be on local government initiatives 
versus kind of big, Fed, top down? In Alaska, we often say, 
hey, one size does not fit all. Federal Government comes up 
with some plan, and we are usually the State that it doesn't 
work in. So that is a secondary question, but I think it is 
related to the first question.
    Ms. Murray. Yes, thank you, Senator. That is an excellent 
question. I am a strong believer in local policies and 
ordinances, simply because those mandates will give you 
benchmarks that are going to produce the data. It simply lets 
you know who is and what neighborhoods are doing what. 
Municipalities have resources, as well. They have yard waste 
and other things that these households can actually use.
    So if we are creating ordinances around a circular economy 
where it says, OK, if you are going to utilize, depending on 
what region and where you are, your yard waste clippings, as 
well as your food waste, those are byproducts that we can 
actually manufacture and distribute back to landscapers or 
others who need it for tree planting, for water runoff, and 
other necessary needs too, as well as soil remediation.
    I am in an industrial city, so we are always looking to 
remediate soils for brownfields and other issues that we face. 
So I think education is key. Making sure households understand 
the difference between carbon.
    In our composting world, you have the greens, right? All 
the decomposable food waste and spent grain from breweries, 
food waste from restaurants, manufacturers. But then you have 
the browns: The cardboards, the leaves. You have to process 
these things in a certain way that makes sense.
    I think with education, that makes it simple for most 
residents to understand that. So I think the Federal 
Government, as well as local, should be working together, 
depending on what region you are in in the country. Because 
these are all processes that can be done.
    But there are also technologies if you are in Alaska or 
Michigan, where, weather permitting, you have a bunch of snow, 
if you have these closed facilities with in vessel, anaerobic 
digestion, certain technologies that can take that material, 
you can produce and accelerate the process easier. But we 
really don't have these facilities set up around the country, 
as much as we should. I think that investment in infrastructure 
is going to be huge to accelerate that.
    That is really what we need to be able to do, is to sort 
and separate that waste stream so we know what the value is. 
Also not just MRFs, but there has to be composting facilities 
as well as recycling facilities. And I think that that is 
something that we are sleeping on. A lot of people talk about 
transfer stations, but they are not looking at actually taking 
certain technologies that exist in Denmark and Germany and 
other places around the world that can replace the landfill. It 
is happening.
    So I hope that I answered your question, because education 
is the key in households. But also mandates and ordinances with 
the local government are going to be key. I have seen Detroit 
slow walk this thing for years for the last decade, and then 
last year, the education and the investment in education and 
having the people understand what these processes are has 
accelerated the process, especially with K-12 schools and 
universities taking that home to those households, as well.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Boozman [presiding]. Thank you.
    Mr. Hairston, in the last 10 years, and especially in the 
last 2 years, we have seen a rise in total online retail sales, 
which means an increased demand for paper packaging. To meet 
the demand, it has been vital to have as much recovered fiber 
in the circular market as possible.
    How has the paper industry's investment into research 
helped you prepare for the upswing in e-commerce we are seeing 
right now?
    Mr. Hairston. Thanks, Senator.
    The data that the act will provide is really going to give 
us more detail on where e-commerce sales and that packaging 
material is available to be recovered. One of the things that 
we have talked about, historically, recycling has been a 
percentage of residential, a percentage of commercial. As we 
see the e-commerce shift, we are seeing a lot more of the 
recycling of fiber based products coming through the 
residential stream. Understanding that stream, understanding 
what is available to be recovered, will allow our industry to 
continue to invest in the right infrastructure and support to 
be able to drive the circular economy and get that commodity 
back into the value stream.
    Senator Boozman. Very good.
    The rest of the panel, anybody who wants to jump in, in 
regard to the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act, 
what type of projects do you expect to be completed should this 
program be enacted?
    Mr. Yepsen. Building off of this question about how you 
make sure that we have solutions that fit the wide variety of 
States, whether that is rural, urban, or suburban environments, 
I think that what I would be really hoping is, I think, 
connected to that rural environment. For composting, we have 
seen a lot of success for drop off programs for food scraps 
composting in more rural States. I know, maybe not as large as 
Alaska, but in Vermont and in Wisconsin, they have had 
successful drop off programs for composting where curbside 
isn't available, so I think that would be one indicator of 
success.
    Senator Boozman. Anybody else?
    Mr. Harvey. I just would add to that, that we would look 
for these programs to give us a source of more material to 
process and get that material, collect all that material, and 
get it into something where we have a package, a bundle, a 
whatever, that the end users can use. That is basically what we 
are looking at today, is to try to get the recycling rate up in 
not only rural America, but all of America, get the whole 
nationwide recycling rate up. Let's use these resources that we 
have in front of us and turn them into another product or into 
the same product.
    Ms. Murray. Hopefully, Senator, we will be able to see more 
mandates around banning food waste from going to the landfills. 
I am a little aggressive with this, because I have been 
involved for the last 12 or 13 years of my life. And I have 
seen places like States like Massachusetts and California, 
different pockets who have aggressively mandated the banning of 
food waste going to the landfill or being burned in the 
incinerator to begin with.
    But I also think the investment in creating these sites 
with the right equipment and technology is going to be key. So 
I think we are going to see a lot of excitement around 
entrepreneurs and advocates who have been working in this, 
particularly me. I would love to be able to expand in Detroit. 
We went from a 2 and a half acre site. We are going before city 
council here soon to expand to 5 or 6 acres. I believe that 
once we create these larger pilots, that is going to open up a 
door for more opportunity for expansion.
    Senator Boozman. Very good.
    Mr. Hairston. Senator, just one thing I would like to add 
to that question, the power of the data is going to allow us to 
solve the right problem for that community. One of the things 
that we talk about sometimes, maybe more of a Federal or a 
broader brush, the reality is, the solution is different based 
on each community, and by having the data, it allows that 
community to really focus there. It may be education; it may be 
infrastructure, it may be something else. But by having this 
data that this bill or this act will put in place, it is going 
to allow us to really tailor that need to meet each community's 
gap and solve that problem.
    Senator Boozman. That really was going to be my next kind 
of follow up. One of the things that Senator Carper and I did 
in the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act was make it 
so that we collect a lot more data and making sure that the 
data is out there to help you all do your stuff, but also to 
inform the legislators, the people at all levels of government 
as to what exactly is going on, so that we have a better 
ability to respond.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper [presiding]. Senator Boozman, thank you so 
much.
    This is an interesting morning. We have all these votes 
going on on the floor, committees meeting, marking up, voting 
on issues, and trying to hold a hearing on an important issue. 
But thank you for helping to make it all work and for being a 
great partner in this.
    I also want to say what I think of it. I want to thank our 
staffs. Sometimes we get the credit as members, or blamed for 
progress made or not made. We are blessed with the staff we 
have on both sides of the aisle, so I want to thank all of 
them, including one who is leaving at the end of this week.
    I want to come back to Mr. Hairston for a question dealing 
with recycling end markets, recycling end markets.
    Mr. Hairston, we all know that the existence of robust end 
markets for recycling products is critical to the longevity and 
effectiveness of the recycling industry. The Recycling and 
Composting Accountability Act would require the Environmental 
Protection Agency to study and issue a report on the end market 
sale of all recyclable materials collected from households and 
processed at a materials recovery facility. This would include 
looking at the end market sale of materials like, for example, 
plastic, like paper, like glass, like aluminum, just to name a 
few of the most common ones.
    My question of you, Mr. Hairston, is this. Based on your 
experience, how could this study on end markets be a useful 
tool to both the public and private sector, and what kind of 
benefits might we see from studying this at the Federal level?
    Mr. Hairston. Thanks for the question. Again, I think what 
the study is going to allow us to do is really have data to go 
in and confirm or potentially identify what is the hypothesis 
or the opportunity we are trying to solve.
    The end markets; International Paper, again, has a 2030 
goal of 100 percent recyclable, reusable, compostable material. 
Our goal is that that product that we are producing is able to 
meet that circularity. This data will help prove that, and it 
would help us continue to innovate solutions for our customer 
base and for others.
    So I think, again, when I think of the Recycling and 
Composting Act, and the data that we will have on both a local 
and Federal level, it will allow private companies, along with 
the public, to partner on how to solve the gaps and where 
materials are really being diverted, and how can we do the 
right things to drive that end market.
    Senator Carper. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Yepsen, a question for you, if I could, also on 
composting end markets. What are some of the differences 
between composting and recycling end markets? What are some of 
the differences between composting end markets and recycling 
end markets, and how will this separate study be useful in 
ultimately reducing the amount of food waste in our landfills?
    Mr. Yepsen. It is a good question. There are so many 
differences, I think, for the end markets for recyclables 
versus compost. When we are thinking about recycling end 
markets, we are thinking about post-consumer recycled content 
going back into new packaging as a direct input.
    When we are thinking about compost end markets, those are 
not a direct input back into new packaging materials or 
directly into new food, there is a slightly longer system 
there. So I think the reason that this study and extra data 
will be so important is just showing all those varieties of 
avenues for end markets for finished compost and making sure 
that we are driving those end markets.
    Because the commonality between recycling end markets and 
composting is that if you don't have an end market, your 
business falls apart. We heard about this earlier, that a lot 
of composting businesses have historically focused on that tip 
fee, the money generated from materials coming in, rather than 
the markets for the finished compost and the sale of that 
compost. Obviously you need both of those for recycling and 
composting, the tip fee and the end market.
    But I think that that is where there is some commonality. 
We have to have that, more knowledge and data around what those 
end markets are and ways that we can make sure that we drive 
that through.
    Senator Carper. Thanks for that response.
    Mr. Yepsen, we are going to stay with you for just a 
minute. I will direct the same question on proper management of 
composting facilities. I want to direct this to you, but also 
to Ms. Murray. I will direct it to you initially, and then we 
will get over to her.
    One of the challenges that often--and this deals with 
proper management of composting facilities--and may act as a 
deterrent for communities who might otherwise want to start a 
program is the odor. In fact, my State of Delaware has faced 
some challenges with this issue in the past. We have a lot of 
chickens in Delaware. We are not a big State, but we are a big 
ag State, as it turns out, and we raise, I think, for every 
person in Delaware, there are 300 chickens, and they create a 
lot of chicken manure.
    We have been working for decades to figure out what to do 
with all of that chicken manure and straw and sawdust that 
comes out of our poultry houses. And I think we are making some 
pretty good progress, some really good progress.
    But my question to you is what can composting facility 
managers do to reduce or eliminate any odors associated with 
composting?
    Mr. Yepsen. That is a good question, and I am familiar with 
some of the composting facilities that have existed and are no 
longer in Delaware, partly around issues due to odor. I think 
that the simple answer is, there are ways to successfully 
compost without huge amounts of odor. The U.S. Composting 
Council has a Certified Operator Program, and there are 
composting classes that happen all around the country in 
different States hosted by the U.S. Composting Council or 
universities or master gardener programs.
    So it is definitely possible to run a facility without 
odors, and it comes down to biology, I think. They are not 
super high tech solutions to control odor; they can be taught 
within these schools. Again, it kind of leads back to that 
other question of what is the business model of those 
composting facilities? Are they really driving to get the 
maximum tonnage coming in to get that tip fee, or are they 
really taking their time to compost successfully and well, 
rather than trying to rush that process?
    Senator Carper. All right, thanks for that response.
    Ms. Murray, really the same two questions. The first 
question again was, what can composting facility managers do to 
reduce or eliminate any odors associated with composting? Then 
a follow up question is how can education programs like the 
development of voluntary guidelines in the Recycling and 
Composting Accountability Act that we are having this hearing 
on today, how can those guidelines help enhance existing or new 
compost programs? Take it away; thank you.
    Ms. Murray. Thank you. Really quickly, on the end market 
question that you asked earlier.
    Senator Carper. Please.
    Ms. Murray. The Department of Transportation, construction 
companies, the Department of Environmental Quality, these are 
all sources that can actually use as an end market for water 
runoff of freeways and interstates. Construction sites buy 
millions, millions of dollars of compost and soils. They are 
always looking for resources around that.
    So I just wanted to put that on record, that there are 
opportunities with the Department of Transportation and other 
government organizations, as well as construction companies 
that buy it as fill. But also when you look at land, lakes, 
rivers, when you look at soil remediation, there is an 
opportunity for us to divert that compost in those directions, 
as well.
    We have run pilots, so we have seen the water, the soil, it 
captures water as a filter as well, so we have seen these 
things happen.
    Of course, you mentioned data. That is very important, but 
we have to hold waste management companies in general and 
others who control these landfills, we can collect all the data 
we want, but we have to mandate and make sure that we are 
getting the right data and that all honesty and transparency is 
happening when you are collecting the data, as well.
    Now, when we are talking about odor, what I have done with 
manure, spent grain from breweries, restaurants, you have to 
look at, again, the carbon and nitrogen, as you mentioned. It 
depends on what the model is.
    So, if you are receiving a lot of feedstock, if you will, 
that has odor, it is imperative that you manage that in a 
certain amount of time. There is a timeframe in which you do 
not want to allow those materials to sit and rot and decompose. 
So you have to have mandates around holding facilities 
accountable, depending on zoning.
    This is where the local government is going to come into 
play as well. Municipalities have to have zoning and laws 
around what they are going to do in specific areas, because the 
zoning is key. In a place like Detroit, we are located along 
the river. We have certain zones that we only allow composting 
to be operated. That is going to be key. You do not want 
residents to smell these odors.
    But can we retain this water runoff and make sure that we 
are reducing odor? Absolutely. It is about process. There are 
simple solutions. You can use sawdust, woodchips, all kinds of 
browns, I call them, products, the carbon, to suppress that.
    But in vessel technology, anaerobic digesters, the zoo that 
we work with, the Detroit Zoological Society, has an anaerobic 
digester. That works as a simple system. That manure and that 
food waste is processed, that energy that is retained, that 
methane is used to heat a building, the animal hospital. The 
solids go into one area; the liquids go into another. So it can 
be done. So the odor can definitely be suppressed.
    Your last question, I believe, you talked about education? 
Is that what you mentioned?
    Senator Carper. Yes.
    Ms. Murray. What I have seen, which is phenomenal, is, 
let's take a company like General Motors or an automotive 
community. They feed thousands of people. General Motors has 25 
restaurants in their headquarters. Then you take a small mom 
and pop restaurant, or you have someone as large as Campbell's 
or a brewing facility.
    What happens is, all those materials represent something 
different. They all have a certain lifespan. You have to go in 
and educate the head chef of these restaurants to make sure 
that they are sorting and separating, just like you have to 
talk to a major corporation about how long is that food waste 
going to sit on that docking area. We have collected food waste 
from numerous sources, but it is all in process and education, 
depending on if you are manufacturing food, if you are cooking 
the food, whoever you are, whether it is a household, there is 
a lifespan in which you have to manage that food waste 
properly.
    Senator Carper. Every now and then, we have witnesses, 
after we ask questions, they will say thank you for that 
question. I want to say, thank you for those answers. Those 
were very good, very helpful.
    This next question is for all of the witnesses, and I think 
every one of you has mentioned the term circular market or 
circular markets, as we have been in this hearing today. We 
will kind of go in reverse order here. We will go with Mr. 
Harvey, Ben Harvey.
    I will ask you to respond initially, Ben.
    This past fall, as you know, we held a roundtable series 
and a Committee hearing on the concept of a circular economy. 
We heard from stakeholders from a variety of industries and 
organizations as well as State and local governments as to what 
it would take to truly transition to an economy that values and 
promotes circularity at every step of the industrial process.
    The Recycling and Composting Accountability Act would 
continue this conversation by directing the Environmental 
Protection Agency to conduct a study on the amounts of 
recyclable materials that are being lost out of the circular 
market in a variety of ways.
    Ben, I am going to ask you to lead off on this one. How can 
having a better understanding of how materials that could 
otherwise be reused being lost from the circular market be 
beneficial to each of your industries and the country as a 
whole?
    Mr. Harvey, I am going to ask you to take that one 
initially, and then we will turn to Mr. Hairston.
    Mr. Harvey. OK, thank you.
    The great data gives us the opportunity to plan our MRFs 
and our markets to take this material, and again, bring it in. 
If we have the data soon enough, the correct data, the amount 
of material that we are going to be gathering, where it is 
going to come from, what we can turn it into, then we can make 
smart business decisions. We can make those decisions, OK, do 
we put in more, in our industry's case, can we put in more 
optical sorters, do we need to have more robotics, do we need 
to establish and look for more markets for this material to go 
into.
    Without this information, it comes into our facilities, and 
we are dealing with it kind of on the go. We are very 
adaptable. We are used to doing that. But again, concrete, good 
data is so important to moving this along.
    Senator Carper. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Hairston, please, same question.
    Mr. Hairston. Thanks, Senator.
    We strongly support the provisions that require EPA to 
conduct a study of recyclable materials, the commercial and 
municipal waste streams, where the previous 10 years that were 
diverted from the circular market. We believe that the study 
will highlight the strong recycling rates of paper and paper 
based packaging and help clarify why our current recycling 
rates are reaching a practical maximum without potential 
regulations to improve.
    Examples like products similar to wallboard tape and 
tissue, which aren't really identified for recovery, are things 
that may show up in the study. But the data will also, again, 
allow us to make sure we focus on the right items.
    One of the biggest things impacting the circularity of 
fiber based products is contamination. The Recycle Act is 
focused on education, and we think what education does is it 
reduces contamination. But the data will also help make sure we 
are focused in the right areas going forward.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    I am going to ask our other two witnesses to, Mr. Yepsen 
and Ms. Murray, I am going to ask you to answer that question 
for the record.
    Now I am going to yield to Senator Boozman; you are all 
done? OK, all in.
    OK, in that case, I am going to ask Senator Yepsen----
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. If you stay long enough, you might be. Mr. 
Yepsen and Ms. Murray, to go back and answer the same question 
that has just been answered by our other witnesses, and that 
is, just to remind you, how can having a better understanding 
of how materials that could otherwise be reused are being lost 
from the circular market be beneficial to each of your 
industries and to our country as a whole?
    Please go ahead, Mr. Yepsen, Ms. Murray.
    Mr. Yepsen. Yes, thank you.
    I think one of the reasons that this would be so important 
is that we need the systems based approach, right, it is not 
just the number of the facilities or the number of collection 
programs. Having Federal data and studies that show all of 
these different elements and to start using some common 
language are really important. Because right now, we have 
different State reporting requirements.
    I think that has been part of the challenge when we look at 
something like composting, is that there are different 
definitions of what is recyclable or compostable from community 
to community, from State to State. States have different 
requirements for what has to be reported to them or not 
reported, and that makes it really challenging as we start 
trying to think of what a national strategy is to make sure 
that we are able to have more communities with composting 
programs.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    Ms. Murray, do you want to bat cleanup on this one?
    Ms. Murray. Sure.
    I agree with Rhodes that, with a national strategy, we have 
to look at throughout the country the different regions and 
States, because it is all different. For instance, in Michigan, 
when you look at ordinances on the local level with the city 
and whether you look at the State level, I agree with the 
language. It all has to translate the same in a harmonious way. 
We need a commonality around speaking climate and speaking 
around composting.
    But the Department of Transportation may get a different 
message from the State than what they may get on language from 
the city. I think it all has to align in order for us to 
positively move forward.
    When I first started Detroit Dirt, the city did not have 
any ordinances in place. We had to adhere to guidelines with 
the State on composting. But now with Part 115, which is what 
they are working on in Michigan, we are looking at 
categorizing, if you will. A small household composting, or an 
urban farmer is different than a mid-sized level composter, or 
an industrial composter.
    So we definitely want to make sure that we are categorizing 
the businesses according to certifications, but also making 
sure that we adhere to a common language that is being used on 
a city and State and Federal level, so it all translates the 
same.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    Last question, from me and from our Committee today, will 
be directed to Mr. Harvey. It deals with, Mr. Harvey, technical 
assistance.
    As you know, many communities have a desire to improve 
their recycling programs, but oftentimes, they lack the 
expertise to make meaningful changes to those programs. The 
Recycling and Composting Accountability Act that Senator 
Boozman and I have co-sponsored would allow the Environmental 
Protection Agency to provide technical assistance to States, to 
local, and tribal communities that wish to reduce their overall 
waste or improve their composting and recycling programs.
    Mr. Harvey, my question is simply this. Do you believe that 
the ability to provide technical assistance is important? Can 
you share with us an example or two of how receiving technical 
assistance has helped improve a recycling program?
    Mr. Harvey. I definitely think that technical assistance is 
critical to our industry to help the municipalities or help the 
rural areas to increase their recycling. The Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts has given grants for technical assistance that 
have helped us develop markets. Developing those markets, now 
that we can bring more material in through our system, helps 
us. They have developed the technical market, the technical 
assistance on glass. They have also given us technical 
assistance on organics, how to process organics, given us the 
tools we need to collect and process that material. We are 
actually using it for anaerobic digestion. We are not 
composting it. But those are a couple of types of the technical 
assistance that we have used in our operation.
    Senator Carper. Well, good. Thank you.
    Those are all the questions we have today. I want to do 
just a quick wrap up, here, if I can. We have a couple of 
sisters who work in our Dover offices and Wilmington office, 
the King sisters. They have a favorite saying. Their saying is 
``Teamwork makes the dream work.'' How about that? Teamwork 
makes the dream work.
    We are blessed in this Committee to be really good at 
teamwork, and we don't agree on every single thing, but we 
reported unanimously out of this Committee last year bipartisan 
infrastructure legislation dealing with roads, highways, 
bridges, bipartisan legislation dealing with water, drinking 
water, wastewater sanitation, all kinds of issues that can end 
up being a part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that the 
President signed into law.
    We have seen another good demonstration here today of 
teamwork. I ran out of here to go over to one of my other 
committees, Homeland Security Committee, I think we had a dozen 
or more nominations to vote on. We had, I think, a dozen or so 
bills to go through and to vote on separately. I had an 
opportunity to speak on at least one of those and make all of 
our votes, and another vote on the floor, and it could not have 
happened without the great teamwork we have here, especially 
been demonstrated by Senator Capito and Senator Boozman. I just 
want to say especially thank yous to them and to others who 
participated in this hearing, both here in person and remotely.
    I want to thank our staffs as well. We couldn't do it 
without you, and this is such an important issue, and one that 
I am quite passionate about. I know a lot of folks on our 
Committee are, and across the country.
    Every now and then, we have an opportunity on issues that 
are important to our country on which there is agreement. I 
like to say, the sun, the moon, the stars are coming into 
alignment. This is one such day, one such issue. I have been 
waiting for this issue, for this day, for a long time, and I 
believe that Senator Capito and Senator Boozman and others on 
our Committee have, as well.
    I have all these aphorisms that I like to use, and I could 
just go through them. In adversity, lies opportunity. That is 
Einstein. We have plenty of adversity in terms of what do we do 
with all this waste, whether it is food waste or whether it is 
other kind of waste that ends up maybe in our trash cans, or 
maybe in recycling, but there is plenty of opportunity here, 
too.
    I am always looking for ways to put people to work. I am a 
recovering Governor, and the idea of doing something that is 
good for our planet and good for putting people to work and 
helping them be self-sufficient, that is always something that 
is near and dear to my heart.
    Someone mentioned hub and spoke systems. I think a couple 
of people mentioned that; a couple of our witnesses did, with 
respect to making improvement to opportunities to recycle and 
compost in more rural parts of our country. I especially 
appreciate hearing that, from a State that has a lot of urban, 
not up north, but a lot of rural in the southern part of our 
State.
    One of the other thoughts that came to mind for me during 
the course of this was, find out what works, and do more of 
that. There you go. Find out what works; do more of that. I was 
Governor and Chairman of the National Governors Association, 
and Tommy Thompson, Governor of Wisconsin and I helped create 
something called Center for Best Practices, kind of a 
clearinghouse for good ideas. I am going to be sharing with 
them, I still share with the National Governors Association's 
Center for Best Practices. We are going to be talking with them 
probably later this week about this hearing, and some of what 
we are learning and some of what we are hearing is we can use 
the NGA as a way to get good information out.
    I just am so encouraged by what we have heard here today, 
encouraged by what is happening, particularly in places like 
Detroit, but other places, including Delaware and places across 
the country, rural, urban, and somewhere in between. There are 
any numbers of ways to do good things for our planet and create 
economic opportunity and jobs, and we are onto some really good 
stuff here, really good stuff here.
    Let me see. I think I need to say, this is printed out for 
me, so I won't forget it. Again, thank you for all those who 
joined us in person and one from afar. Your support of the two 
pieces of legislation is going to be really important as we 
work to pass both of them and make them better, and hopefully 
pass them and work with the House and the Administration to get 
them done.
    I am thrilled that the EPA, led by Michael Regan, has 
gotten really serious about recycling. They have taken a lot of 
input from our Committee, as they have provided in their recent 
paper.
    We enjoyed hearing all the ways that these bills can 
improve our Nation's recycling and composting programs. It also 
helps us to appreciate that our waste challenges are vast, but 
not insurmountable if we take steps now.
    Before we adjourn, a little bit of housekeeping. I would 
like to ask unanimous consent to submit for the record a 
variety of materials that includes letters from stakeholders 
and other materials that relate to today's hearing.
    I love to ask for unanimous consent when I am the only one 
here, because I am not going to object to my unanimous consent 
request, so. It is agreed to.
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    Senator Carper. Additionally, I would say to my colleagues 
on the Committee, you will be allowed to submit questions for 
the record through the close of business on Wednesday, February 
the 16th. That is a couple of weeks. We will compile those 
questions, send them out to our witnesses, and ask that you 
reply by Wednesday, March the 2nd. I believe that is 2 weeks, 
if I am not mistaken.
    With that, in the Navy, when people do an especially good 
job on important issues, we have a saying, and that is bravo 
zulu. Bravo zulu, I would say to each of you, to our Committee 
members, to those who helped, staff, Committee members, bravo 
zulu all around.
    With that, I think, it is a wrap. I am going to run and 
vote again.
    Thanks, everybody.
    [Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows:]
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