Since 2019, in the wake of China’s implementation of its National Sword policy, Waste Dive has tracked suspensions and shutdowns of scores of local curbside recycling programs across the U.S. Municipalities have been citing reasons including cost, contamination problems, low participation and most recently, the pandemic as reasons for dropping the programs. At the same time, there are numerous examples of municipalities newly launching, expanding and enhancing their programs, in many cases leveraging outside support.

Even during the pandemic, cities managed to make progress by using grants to support cart access, automation, and more frequent pickups, said Cody Marshall, The Recycling Partnership’s chief community strategy officer. And anecdotally, Marshall said, cities’ American Rescue Plan allocations to other services seem to indirectly be protecting recycling spending that otherwise might have been cut.

As the U.S. recovers from the pandemic, “cities are really taking this opportunity to look at their full service of garbage, recycling, bulky, yard waste — they're all related for these cities, so [it’s a good chance to look at] all of those services,” Marshall said. Looking at the year ahead, Marshall expects progress on expanding recycling access throughout multifamily developments and to include polypropylene in more curbside programs.

The Recycling Partnership (TRP) singled out a dozen cities last February in its 2020 State of Curbside Recycling report — including Kansas City, Milwaukee and Nashville — that it considered ripe for curbside recycling program expansion.

Another one of the cities on that list, Baltimore, is the beneficiary of a newly announced collaboration between TRP, Closed Loop Partners and others to support a $9.5 million effort to provide recycling carts to 205,000 households. According to TRP, Baltimore is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. without universal cart recycling access.

Elsewhere, Utah-based startup Recyclops is continuing its bid to establish recycling pickup routes in communities without recycling service, or expand recycling streams where some curbside system already exists. The company is now in over 100 markets, having more than tripled its presence in the last year, according to founder and CEO Ryan Smith.

In addition to launching new service over the last year in places including Beaumont, Texas, and Yukon, Oklahoma, Recyclops introduced curbside glass recycling to Kansas City, Kansas, and Nashville, Tennessee, Smith said, seeing ample runway to launch collection services for soft plastics or other hard-to-recycle items in cities across the U.S. Now, the company is also eyeing communities seeking to reintroduce the service after cutting it.

“The residents already know how to recycle, they already care ... there's plenty of communities that have never had recycling, and we want to be recycling there. But, one of our main objectives right now as a company is to bring recycling back,” Smith said.

More updates from around the country:

• New York City's Department of Sanitation recently released a document showing nearly 50 companies, including notable names not currently in the market, are eligible to bid on the next phase of a request for proposals to service a future commercial waste zone system. (Waste Dive)

• New York-based Recycle Track Systems plans to expand into more municipalities, having just closed a $35 million Series C investment round. The company now serves 150,000 residential customers, and it has tripled the number of New Jersey municipalities it serves so far this year.

• Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Wednesday the city will offer $3,000 signing bonuses as it looks to hire at least 100 licensed commercial waste drivers. (KTRK)

• San Diego has set aside $30 million for new waste containers. Half will go toward green bins and kitchen pails as the state prepares to comply with the upcoming SB 1383 organics recycling law, and half will go toward replacing damaged trash and recycling bins. (The San Diego Union-Tribune)

• Shreveport, Louisiana, which ended its twice-monthly Republic Services recycling pickups in October, this week recommended that a local consultancy without prior experience take over the city’s recycling service. (KEEL)

• The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled last week that parts of a 2017 state law allowing small cities in Jefferson County, near Louisville, to opt out of countywide waste management rules are unconstitutional. (WDRB)

• Madison, Wisconsin’s recycling contamination rate is improving, the city shared Thursday. The current contamination rate is 12.8%, better than the 18.9% measured during a sampling in late 2019 and below the national average of 17% cited in a 2020 report from The Recycling Partnership.

• Anchorage, Alaska’s Department of Solid Waste Services is the first recipient of a Peterbilt 220EV battery electric solid waste truck, in a bid to demonstrate the benefits of battery electric commercial vehicles to the rest of the state. (Recycling Product News)

• The Atlanta-area city of Lawrenceville, Georgia, which had considered ending its curbside recycling program due to rising costs, will continue services thanks to a trash and recycling fee it will begin charging residents in 2022. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

• Hoboken, New Jersey, last week opened eight new drop-off composting locations, tripling its available sites. (Hudson Reporter)

• Simpsonville, South Carolina, is gearing up to provide trash collection in September when its contract with Meridian Waste ends. The city’s public works department has purchased four new garbage trucks and ordered 8,700 trash cans. (Greenville Journal)

• Near Birmingham, Alabama, a collection of municipalities representing nearly 60,000 single-family households have joined together to form the Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority. (Hoover Sun)

• Boston suburb Somerville, Massachusetts, announced this week it’s expanding textile recycling service to all city residents, even if they do not receive city trash services. Contractor Simple Recycling will now offer on-demand collection service, effective July 1.

• The city of Savannah, Georgia, is partnering with local businesses to implement aluminum to-go cups in lieu of plastic alternatives. A pilot program aims to circulate 50,000 of the cups. (WSAV)