Recycling Stagnates Even in Cities, States With Ambitious Goals

Cities and states with big ambitions to reduce landfill waste by 2020 are falling short of their goals as the markets for recyclables are changing and the cost to process them is going up.

Recycling and other methods of diverting trash can reduce the growth of landfills—a source of the potent greenhouse gas methane—while conserving raw materials and the energy it takes to produce them.

But China’s decision to stop taking most recyclables from the U.S. in 2018 roughly cut in half the revenue from selling the recyclables people put in their curbside bins, according to a report from ...