Americans feel good about recycling, and company recycling commitments help guide their purchases — even as everyday barriers can limit recycling follow through
WM, a leading environmental solutions provider and North America’s largest recycler, released its 2025 WM Recycling Report, revealing a significant “say-do gap” between Americans’ recycling intentions and their actual behaviors. The survey also highlighted that consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies with well-known product brands can influence purchasing decisions by prioritizing recyclability.
Based on a national survey of more than 1,000 consumers and immersive behavioral research in various U.S. markets, the report highlights how positive emotions, everyday rituals and competing priorities shape recycling, and identifies opportunities to make recycling easier, more convenient and more impactful. It also shows that consumers oftentimes favor companies with recycling commitments – such as those that use recycled content in products or businesses that make recycling available.
“The 2025 WM Recycling Report shows us that to truly close the gap between intention and action, recycling providers, consumer packaged goods companies and municipalities need to meet people where they are and understand what influences them to recycle,” said Tara Hemmer, chief sustainability officer, WM. “At WM, we are investing in technology, infrastructure and education to help turn good recycling intentions into real, lasting impact — all while working with companies to help them maintain their recycled content commitments and with municipalities to increase recycling access in communities.”
The research, which comes ahead of America Recycles Day on November 15, found that Americans today are as committed to recycling as ever, but sometimes life can get in the way of making the effort to recycle. Many respondents also noted that corporate recycling commitments can influence purchasing habits – which is critical as companies purchasing recycled content for use in packaging is imperative to recycling success. Key findings of the report include:
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