Imagine donating to a fundraiser to support a park in your community. Now imagine that the money you donated actually went to a developer who bulldozed the park and built a parking lot. Frustrating, right? Something similar happens when the materials that consumers recycle lack end markets: their good intentions don’t produce real-world results.
End markets are a critical piece of the recycling process: A material’s demand on end markets is instrumental in determining whether the materials consumers sort and clean actually make it to their next life as a recycled material. Without robust end markets, the circularity loop for materials opens up, and recyclability claims lose credibility.
End market demand is one of the five key pillars of How2Recycle’s recyclability assessments, which include: collection, sortation, reprocessing, end markets, and applicable law. During the 2025 How2Recycle Summit, How2Recycle’s Karen Hagerman unpacked the process behind our team’s end market evaluation and the challenges to determining demand. Plus, she explored how the How2Recycle team is strengthening its evaluation framework toward greater consistency, transparency, and alignment with new policy expectations.
Why are end markets a critical part of assessing a material’s recyclability?
The legitimacy of a label designating a material as recyclable depends on real market demand — buyers who will purchase and reprocess the material. These markets represent the key link between material sortation and reprocessing, they mark the point in the circularity loop where recyclability becomes reality.
Of course, there’s a difference between technical recyclability and recyclability in reality: Even when something can technically be reprocessed, if no one purchases the collected material to reprocess it into a new material or product, the material misses a key criteria on How2Recycle’s recyclability assessments.
“We need to substantiate materials’ end markets so that we can feed that into the rest of the claim that members are using on pack,” Hagerman said during the How2Recycle Summit. In other words, end markets don’t just determine recyclability, they determine credibility in an industry that hinges on consumer participation.
What are the challenges of evaluating end markets?
During her presentation, Hagerman outlined several reasons why end market demand evaluation remains one of How2Recycle’s most complex assessment areas:
- Confidentiality and data access: Because end market transactions are commercial in nature, much of the data that could verify materials’ demand is proprietary. Details like material volumes, pricing, and end uses are often confidential business information. This makes it difficult to independently confirm where materials are going, how much material is being purchased, and whether that demand is stable over time.
- Data gaps and inconsistent sources: Reliable, standardized data on end markets is still limited, in part because of the confidential nature of demand data. Different materials are tracked in different ways — or not at all — making it difficult to compare performance across packaging types. The lack of consistent, publicly available information creates challenges for setting thresholds and ensuring that recyclability assessments reflect real-world recycling outcomes.
- Regional variability: The more than 9,000 recycling systems in the U.S. operate locally and, largely, independently. A material might have a robust end market demand in one region if a local converter can reprocess that material, but it might have little or no demand in another region. Other materials, like aluminum, can have stronger end market demand across the country. Because How2Recycle is a national label, our “Check Locally” label helps account for these variations in end market demand across the country.
These gaps underscore the importance of clear, accurate communication: consumers rely on How2Recycle members to provide trustworthy guidance about what materials can — and will — truly be recycled.
How does How2Recycle evaluate end market demand?
How2Recycle has built its end market evaluation approach around four key factors: volume and capacity, demand stability, economic viability, and responsibility.
Historically, How2Recycle has considered the first three factors, but at the 2025 How2Recycle Summit Hagerman announced the addition of the responsibility criteria.
“The updated framework aims to be credible, defensible, and consistent across multiple packaging categories, while remaining as straightforward as possible.”
The goal with this scorecard is to create a system that can be applied consistently and reliably, even as it incorporates new dimensions such as responsibility. Under this enhanced model, How2Recycle continues to assess:
- Volume and capacity: This criteria seeks to ensure a high volume of material being reclaimed and sold, and to ensure the regional reach of recycling
- Demand stability: Demand stability accounts for material demand over time, MRF acceptance, bale creation capabilities, and warning signs of market disconnect (e.g. increased landfilling).
- Economic viability: This criteria evaluates material price trends (whether materials are consistently profitable or not), the inclusion of material in industry bale specifications, and feedback from recyclers or trade associations on the value of the material.
- Responsibility: Here, we seek to ensure adherence to environmental regulations, Responsible End Market standards, and transparent chain-of-custody documentation; We also strive to understand reports of contamination or mismanagement in recycling practices
Together, these factors create a comprehensive picture of end market viability and help inform the material assessments behind our label decisions. The chart below outlines the intersections of end market viability and three How2Recycle label tiers:
New public and policy pressures on end markets
How2Recycle members know better than anyone that emerging regulations are adding urgency and new complexity to end market evaluation. Now, two pivotal policy factors include California’s SB 343 and compliance with the Basel Convention.
SB 343 will redefine which materials can be called “recyclable” in the state; and to learn more about the current status, members can review California’s material and waste characterization studies.
To address these new policy pressures, How2Recycle is piloting its enhanced framework and working to fill key data gaps. “We intend to refine that and also pilot the scoring system — to test it out with a known material to see if it actually results in what we would expect,” Hagerman said.
“The credibility of recycling, of recyclability, really does hinge on having end markets that are processing the material and turning it into new material,” Hagerman said. “This is a really important part, and I think it’s clear that the public is becoming more and more aware of this.”
What’s next for How2Recycle’s evaluation of end markets?
Looking ahead, How2Recycle sees end market evaluation as one of many great opportunities to collaborate with members and industry stakeholders. We strongly encourage How2Recycle members, partners, and stakeholders to contribute data, share insights, and provide feedback on the evolving framework.
Together, we can refine end market evaluation, strengthen recycling transparency, and ensure that recyclability claims remain credible and actionable. Want to help shape a consistent, reliable, and responsible approach to end market evaluation? Get in touch today at how2recycle@greenblue.org
The post How How2Recycle Evaluates End Markets: Insights from the 2025 How2Recycle Summit appeared first on GreenBlue.
