How much US municipal solid waste is recycled?

Just over 32% of all U.S. municipal solid waste was recycled or composted in 2018, according to the latest EPA data. The lines show the percentage of each type of waste recycled.

Lines show over half of paper and cardboard is recycled, but smaller percentages of glass and less than 10% of plastics.

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Plastics of recycling in 1960 and 1970 was less than 0.5%, and less than 1% in 1980.

Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-NDSource: Environmental Protection AgencyGet the dataEmbed Download imageCreated with Datawrapper