If you love sorting your plastic and paper waste from the rest of the trash, this is good news for you: Washington state is set to significantly expand access to recycling.
Gov. Bob Ferguson signed into law this month the “Recycling Reform Act,” which he called the “biggest overhaul of our recycling system in decades.”
For years, access to recycling varied widely across the state, and most recyclable items ended up in landfills or were burned.
While nearly all households around Puget Sound have access to curbside recycling, 11 counties have no recycling services. Washington has higher recycling rates compared to most states, but only 40% of consumer packaging, like plastic, paper and aluminum, ends up at recycling facilities, according to a 2023 state Department of Ecology report.
Supporters say the new law will ultimately boost recycling rates and lower costs for residents. But it will be phased in over several years with the earliest changes that consumers may notice coming in 2030.
“There will not be a lot of changes immediately,” said Heather Trim, executive director at Zero Waste Washington, who worked on the legislation. “We are talking about a number of studies and getting things established because when you do a bill that’s this big a deal, you just can’t do it overnight.”
What does the bill do?
The law will shift the responsibility of managing how packaging gets recycled from consumers to brands and producers, advocates say.
The law establishes an “extended producer responsibility” program, which requires brands and producers of packaging to join a nonprofit that would be responsible for overseeing the state’s recycling system, boosting recycling and bringing down costs with oversight from the state Ecology Department.
The organization will determine how much each producer must pay in fees, depending on what materials they use in their packaging, and those fees would go toward reimbursing cities, counties and service providers for their recycling programs, Trim said.
Why is this a big deal?
To be clear, the hope and promise of recycling — specifically around plastics — has been a narrative largely influenced by the oil and gas industry, the makers of plastic. (Last year, the state of California sued ExxonMobil, accusing the company of misleading the public on the efficacy of plastic recycling.)
But the new recycling law puts Washington in a select group of states that have passed similar laws attempting to boost recycling rates of all materials in the past few years. In Canada and Europe, these kinds of recycling programs have existed for over a decade.
Ecology has also claimed the program will eventually decrease the cost of recycling for residents by 90%, boost the recycling rate to 66% of materials regulated by the bill and expand recycling services to around 500,000 households by 2032.
The law has also been years in the making and has long been on the wish list of environmental advocates. This was the fifth year the Washington Legislature has debated a version of the bill.
What are some important dates to know?
As for what observers can expect next from the law, Ecology will be required to publish a standardized list of materials that should be accepted for recycling across the state (similar to what Oregon has already done) by October 2026.
Ecology will also publish a closely watched preliminary “needs assessment” by the end of 2026, which will answer questions around the cost of expanding recycling access in the state. The assessment will outline current gaps in the state’s recycling system, like how many additional trucks or sorting facilities are needed and where.
According to the proposed timeline, residents should receive reduced-cost recycling services starting in 2030, with the nonprofit responsible for overseeing the state’s recycling program reimbursing recycling service providers 50% in 2030 and 90% in 2032.
