Sponsors (3)
Official title: Establish a pilot grant program to improve recycling accessibility, to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to carry out certain activities to collect and disseminate data on recycling and composting programs in the United States, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 30, 2025 by Shelley Moore Capito · Last progress November 20, 2025
The bill directs modest, targeted federal grants and improved data tools to expand recycling capacity—especially in underserved communities—but does so with modest funding, delayed rollout, reporting burdens, and limited support for outreach or full national implementation, creating a trade-off between targeted infrastructure gains and practical limits on speed, transparency, and scope.
Low-income, rural, urban, and tribal communities gain new access to recycling through a grant-funded hub-and-spoke infrastructure program (prioritizes underserved areas), which should reduce collection/transport costs and advance environmental justice.
Federal authorization of $30M/year for five years provides predictable federal funding to help local governments and tribes build recycling capacity and lower long-term operational costs.
States, tribes, and localities receive standardized data, technical assistance, inventories, and a diversion metric to identify materials-recovery and composting capacity gaps, enabling targeted investments and better infrastructure planning.
Taxpayers fund $30M/year for five years to support the pilot program, increasing federal spending and creating opportunity costs for other priorities.
The pilot design and an estimated 18-month setup delay mean communities—especially underserved areas—will not receive immediate improvements; grant awards are delayed by program establishment and application cycles.
States, tribes, and localities face additional reporting and coordination burdens to produce standardized data without guaranteed funding, potentially straining budgets and staff capacity.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Establishes an EPA pilot grant program to build recycling infrastructure and requires new EPA data, inventories, and reports on recycling and composting.
Creates a pilot EPA grant program to build and expand recycling hub-and-spoke infrastructure and improve access to recycling in underserved communities, with grants ranging from $500,000 to $15,000,000 and a program authorization of $30 million annually for FY2025–FY2029. Sets program rules (cost-share cap, minimum share for underserved areas, prohibited uses), requires the EPA to stand up the program within 18 months, and mandates reporting to Congress on grantees and impacts. Directs the EPA to collect and publish standardized data and inventories on recycling and composting infrastructure, update end-market information, produce biannual estimated recycling rates, develop a market-diversion metric, and conduct a 10-year retrospective study; authorizes $4 million annually for these data and reporting activities for FY2025–FY2029, and protects certain confidential business information from disclosure.