A looming Chinese import ban on recyclable materials due to unacceptable rates of contamination may potentially impact recycling programs across the United States. Many news items have reported on the ban, which is to take effect with the beginning of 2018, and its potential impacts.

An article in E-Scrap News, cited an analysis that concluded more than 134,000 jobs in the U.S. are in some way supported by recycled commodities exports. The analysis was a study commissioned by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) to research the economic impacts of scrap recycling.

USEPA and national nonprofit The Recycling Partnership released the 2016 State of Curbside Report, which provides insight and analysis of key curbside attributes that influence the performance of recovering household recyclables at the curb.

A new “breakthrough process” jointly developed by DuPont Industrial Biosciences and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) reportedly enables the production of furan dicarboxylic methyl ester (FDME) from fructose.

In 2015-2016, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) led an industry collaborative to study the availability of recycling programs in the United States and the types of packaging accepted in those programs.

The USEPA released its final report on the impact of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water. The report concludes that hydraulic fracturing activities can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances and identifies factors that influence these impacts.