Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, plastic waste has gone from being a fringe environmental concern to a global environmental priority. Like climate change, its existence is largely attributable to the fossil fuel industry. But unlike the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for altering the earth’s atmosphere, which are regulated through a patchwork of federal regulations, plastic waste is managed almost exclusively by municipal governments as part of their responsibility for municipal solid waste management.

In the US context, municipal waste management has been a core municipal service since the late nineteenth century. Between the 1880s and 2020, municipal waste management evolved as a result of occasional crises brought on by changes in consumption patterns and changing public perceptions of waste and wasting. Municipal waste management decisions are made within the context of the United States’ “weak recycling waste regime.” This waste regime prioritizes production and consumption, and sanctions municipally organized recycling of a few key packaging materials. Producer and waste management industries work together through direct lobbying and a series of industry-funded think tanks and non-profit organizations to maintain the stability of this regime, to keep the costs of production and waste management on individuals and municipal governments, and to ensure that materials can continue to flow one way through the economy.

Two key changes have put increasing pressure on municipal waste systems over the 2010s and now, I contend, are thrusting the weak recycling waste regime into crisis. The first was China’s National Sword policy, which placed new restrictions on the types of material and level of contamination that China would accept for recycling. The National Sword policy altered global recycling markets, making recycling more difficult and costly for American cities. Secondly, the decade saw increases in plastic production as natural gas producers sought outputs for surplus gas. Plastic production has become a key investment area for the fossil fuel industry as energy systems, domestically and globally, target more renewables.

At the national level, the American federal government has been very hesitant to regulate plastics production, and national environmental laws provide almost no regulatory guidance for managing plastics in the waste stream.