The Polypropylene Breakthrough: How to Actually Scale Material Recycling

How did collaboration turn polypropylene cup recycling from a major challenge into a playbook for national success? What does the polypropylene story reveal about scaling recycling for other challenging materials?

U.S. households generate as much polypropylene as HDPE, yet polypropylene’s recycling rate is only one-third that of HDPE. Cold to-go cups made from polypropylene recently earned the Widely Recyclable designation from How2Recycle, reaching more than 60% of U.S. households through curbside programs. This milestone required brands, recyclers, municipalities, and nonprofits to align on infrastructure investment, end market development, consumer education, and system redesign. But 60% access isn’t the finish line. This session explores how the coalition behind this shift built the pathway from design to collection to reprocessing, and what it reveals about making recycling actually work at scale.