Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce, alongside the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman, and the Senator from West Virginia, Mrs. Capito, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act.…
Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce, alongside the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman, and the Senator from West Virginia, Mrs. Capito, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act.
This bill is the result of true collaboration and reflects a substantial amount of bipartisan effort to address our Nation's recycling and composting challenges. This bill aims to improve the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to gather data on our Nation's recycling systems and explore opportunities for implementing a national composting strategy.
The availability of good data is one of the major challenges facing the public and private sector as they work make investments to improve our recycling systems. Upgrading recycling infrastructure, expanding recycling services, and increasing recycling education will all benefit from the availability of better data.
Specifically, this bill will create a comprehensive database of all curbside recycling and composting programs nationwide. It will also assess the materials those programs collect and their rates of contamination. The bill will also look at barriers communities and individuals face when trying to access recycling and composting services.
In addition to that, the bill will ask the EPA to study the end market sale of recyclable and compostable materials. It also directs the EPA to develop a way to measure how otherwise recyclable materials are being lost from the circular market. The reports from both of these studies will be immeasurably helpful to stakeholders, communities, and local and State governments.
As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress provided unprecedented levels of funding for recycling infrastructure and educational programs. The bill I am introducing today represents our next step in building on these efforts--to turn the challenges of recycling and composting into opportunities to reduce planet-warming emissions and create good-paying jobs.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this legislation this Congress. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record following my statement.
