Roughly 25% of the items Americans place in recycling bins are not recyclable. This well-meaning error results in equipment damage, increased processing costs, rejection of contaminated bales by buyers, and injuries to workers tasked with removing these items from conveyor belts.
Recyclers term this hopeful but misguided action as wishcycling, which involves placing uncertain items in the recycling bin with the expectation that the facility will sort them out. Most facilities are not equipped for such sorting, and the expenses associated with attempting it have risen significantly. According to an EPA assessment from August 2024, an investment of $36.5 to $43.4 billion by 2030 is necessary to upgrade the recycling system, which is currently under stress from contamination. Recognizing the actual costs of wishcycling and identifying who bears these costs is crucial to addressing the issue.
What is Wishcycling?
Wishcycling refers to the act of placing items in a recycling bin without knowing if they are accepted, hoping the system will sort it out.
The term was introduced around 2015 by Bill Keegan, president of Dem-Con Companies, a waste and recycling operator in Shakopee, Minnesota. In 2017, Eric Roper of the Star Tribune revisited the term in a column that highlighted industry efforts to enhance recycling education across different haulers and municipalities. Wishcycling behavior predates the term itself, with items like bowling balls, garden hoses, propane tanks, and Christmas lights being sent to material recovery facilities (MRFs) for decades.
The primary shift has been in costs. During the early 2000s, U.S. MRFs accepted fewer material types and shipped most contaminated materials overseas in bales.
Following the implementation of China’s National Sword policy in 2018, the global market for contaminated recycling collapsed. Research from the University at Buffalo indicated a 23.2% increase in plastic landfilled in the U.S. in the year that China’s import bans began taking effect. Now, processors must clean materials to a much higher standard for export or pay to landfill them.
The Contamination Numbers Have Stayed Stubbornly High
Despite variations in national contamination figures by methodology and region, the overall picture remains clear: a substantial portion of every recycling load consists of materials that should not be there. Industry estimates suggest that roughly 25% of items placed in residential bins are not recyclable, with municipalities reporting rates ranging from below 10% to over 40% based on local rules and education. Waste Management, the largest hauler in the U.S., reported its average inbound contamination at just over 17% recently, down from a long-term average of 25%. This is progress, but still far above the under-5% threshold most end markets require.
Capture rates reveal the other side of the story. The Recycling Partnership’s 2024 State of Recycling report indicated that only 21% of recyclable material from U.S. residences is actually recycled. Around 76% is discarded by households as regular trash, and another 3% is lost at the MRF due to contamination, broken glass, and unsortable mixed material that cannot be baled and sold.
This means most recyclables never reach a recycler, and those that do often come with contaminants like pizza grease, plastic bags, garden hoses, food residue, batteries, or propane canisters, compromising the load.
What Contamination Costs the System
Wishcycling impacts the financial aspects of every stage in the recycling process.
In Oregon, processing a ton of single-stream mixed recyclables cost $129 per ton in 2022, according to a Crowe LLP audit mentioned in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2025 review of U.S. recycling. Following the National Sword contamination restrictions, Waste Management’s processing costs rose by about 15%, or approximately $13 per ton, across its 43 single-stream facilities. These costs account for additional labor, optical sorters, screens, and slower processing due to equipment jams.
Contaminated bales at the end of the process sell for less, are downgraded, or are completely rejected. If a load is rejected, the MRF must pay the landfill tipping fee instead of completing a sale. The Environmental Research and Education Foundation’s 2024 tipping fee analysis reports the national average at $62.28 per ton, a 10% increase from 2023, marking the largest year-over-year rise since 2022. In the Northeast, the average is higher, around $80 per ton.
Municipalities and producers ultimately bear the cost. Oregon’s new producer responsibility program, initiated in mid-2025, incorporates a contamination management fee that producers pay to MRFs. The fee is set at $341 per ton of eligible material for 2025 and 2026, increasing to $432 by 2027. This shows regulatory recognition that contamination entails costs, and that entities other than MRF operators should bear them.
The EPA’s August 2024 Recycling Infrastructure Assessment estimates that upgrading U.S. recycling infrastructure to a level that provides every household with recycling access comparable to trash collection requires $36.5 to $43.4 billion in investment by 2030. This figure includes MRFs, packaging-specific recycling facilities, drop-off infrastructure, and composting and anaerobic digestion capacity. Reduced contamination is essential for the recovery gains the investment aims to achieve.
The Human Cost: Recycling Workers Are Getting Hurt
Contamination is not solely an economic issue. Items that do not belong in the recycling stream, such as propane tanks, lithium-ion batteries, medical sharps, broken glass, and plastic bags that tangle in screens, create physical hazards for those sorting recyclables.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January 2026 that the injury rate for solid waste collection workers increased to 5.0 cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers in 2024, up from 4.3 in 2023 and 4.7 in 2022. Workers at material recovery facilities experienced an injury rate of 5.8 per 100 FTE, the highest reported for that category since at least 2020. By comparison, the rate across all private industry in 2024 was 2.3 per 100 FTE, the lowest since 2003. Thus, sorting recycling is more than twice as hazardous as the average American job.
The fatality statistics are even more concerning. The BLS recorded eight MRF deaths in 2024, a decrease from nine the previous year, and 32 fatal injuries among solid waste collection workers, with 23 linked to transportation incidents. In 2024, refuse and recyclable material collection ranked as the fifth-deadliest job in the U.S., following logging, fishing and hunting, roofing, and structural ironworking.
Lithium-ion batteries deserve particular attention. Residents often place them in curbside recycling bins without knowing where else to dispose of them, and they frequently ignite when crushed by compactor trucks or sorting equipment. A 2024 report from the National Waste & Recycling Association and Resource Recycling Systems estimates over 5,000 fires occur annually at U.S. recycling facilities, with the rate of catastrophic losses increasing by 41% over the past five years. Consequently, the cost of insuring an MRF has risen, driving recycling costs for citizens higher.
Why Wishcycling Persists
Three structural issues contribute to high contamination rates.
First, recycling rules are defined locally, but packaging is manufactured for a national market. For instance, a yogurt cup accepted in Seattle might be sent to a landfill in Atlanta. The chasing arrows symbol and resin identification codes 1 through 7 indicate the type of plastic, not whether it can be recycled locally. A 2020 McKinsey survey cited in the National Academies’ 2025 report found that two-thirds of U.S. consumers are confused by this discrepancy.
Second, single-stream collection is convenient for residents and trucks but results in dirtier loads compared to dual- or multi-stream systems. Most U.S. municipal recycling programs now use single-stream collection, and the convenience that made it popular also allows more contamination.
Third, many people feel a strong moral obligation to recycle, leading them to disregard instructions. A National Academies survey indicated that 78% of consumers check product labels to sort products correctly, and 82% trust the information on those labels. When labels are incorrect or misleading, good intentions turn into contamination.
What You Can Do
Addressing wishcycling starts with individual decisions at the bin, but it is most effective when combined with system-level changes.
At the household level:
- Check your local recycling guidelines and display them where you sort. Use the Earth911 recycling search by ZIP code and material to find what’s accepted nearby.
- When uncertain, dispose of it as trash. A single contaminated item can devalue an entire bale. A landfilled item costs the system less than a wishcycled one that must be removed twice and sent to the landfill anyway.
- Follow four practical rules: keep recyclables empty, clean, dry, and loose. Do not bag recyclables, leave food residue, or include items that tangle, like hoses, cords, string lights, or plastic bags.
- Avoid placing batteries, propane cylinders, electronics, or hazardous waste in curbside bins. Use a dedicated drop-off location. Most counties have hazardous waste collection days, and many retailers accept batteries.
- Handle plastic bags and film separately. Most municipal MRFs cannot process them; grocery stores and big-box retailers often have collection bins for them at the entrance.
At the community and policy level:
- Support extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws that transfer the cost of packaging recyclability to the companies producing it. Several states have packaging EPR laws in effect; Oregon’s began in mid-2025.
- Inquire whether your local officials publish contamination data and audit MRF inbound loads. Cities that measure contamination tend to manage it better.
- Challenge misleading recyclability labels. The Federal Trade Commission has been reviewing its Green Guides since 2022 but has yet to issue an update; public attention has been a primary driver keeping the review active.
Wishcycling occurs when good intentions meet a system that cannot accommodate them. The solution is not to reduce efforts but to focus them: understand what your program accepts, adhere to the rules even if it seems wasteful, and advocate for policies that influence what is produced and labeled.
The actions of individuals in choosing what to place in the bin directly affect the workers sorting recyclables, the municipalities financing processing, and the potential for materials to become new products.
Editor’s Note: Originally published on January 11, 2017, this article was substantially updated in June 2026.
The post The Reasons “Wishcycling” Is Always a Bad Idea appeared first on Earth911.
