Every two years, the City of Sioux Falls conducts the National Community Survey to understand how residents feel about city services. Recycling is just one small part of that survey — but this year, it sent an important signal.
Confidence Is Dropping
In the survey, 81% of residents rated recycling as good or excellent in 2019. By 2025, that number dropped to 57%. That doesn’t mean recycling in Sioux Falls suddenly stopped working. It means confidence dropped — and when confidence drops, participation usually follows.
When residents were asked why they don’t recycle consistently, the most common responses were simple: they don’t know what’s recyclable, they don’t have a bin or an option, or they don’t think it matters.
That matches what we see every day. Many businesses and multi-housing properties are required to provide recycling, yet bins are often missing, inconvenient, or not enforced — sending recyclable material straight to the landfill.
Recycling in Sioux Falls Does Work
Millennium processes about 100 million pounds of material every year. When recyclables arrive the way they’re supposed to, they are absolutely being recycled. Materials support regional manufacturers, use far less energy than mining or processing raw materials, and strengthen the domestic economy.
This is a local, established system — and it works. What hurts it isn’t the process itself, but confusion before pickup and the belief that recycling “just goes to the landfill anyway.”
Why Recycling Matters in Sioux Falls
You don’t have to care about the environment to see the value. Recycling saves limited landfill space, helps control long-term disposal costs, uses far less energy than making products from raw materials, supports local and regional jobs, and strengthens U.S. manufacturing.
These are practical, economic benefits — not “greenwashing”.
The Bottom Line
The community survey is clear: public trust in recycling is slipping.
As a local business working every day to recover and recycle material — with landfill disposal rates under 5% of what we bring in — it’s tough to see that trust erode. Recycling works in Sioux Falls when the right items go in the bin, residents and haulers take it seriously, and education and enforcement support the system.
That’s why we’ve invested in a nonprofit educational program to help people recycle right and know what goes where. You can support that effort by downloading the free app to answer “What can I recycle?”, using the directory to find local drop-off and reuse options, or scheduling a tour or group presentation.
Once you see how it works, it’s hard to believe the myth that recycling doesn’t matter — because here in Sioux Falls, it does.
SPECIAL Thanks to Dakota News Now for visiting us to get the word out about this important issue.
The post What Sioux Falls’ Community Survey Is Telling Us About Recycling appeared first on Millennium Recycling.
