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(Washington, DC)  -  Touting the numerous economic, environmental, and manufacturing benefits of recycling, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) today released the following statement regarding President Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure package, the American Jobs Plan.

ISRI applauds President Biden’s proposal to inject long-overdue federal funding into the nation’s transportation infrastructure, especially where it concerns revitalizing those networks that are key to transporting manufactured goods – the lifeblood of our economy. We also applaud the Administration’s commitment to prioritizing the use of sustainable and energy efficient materials in the process, and we urge Congress to swiftly pass related legislation that emphatically promotes the use of recycled materials to that end.

An improved transportation infrastructure is absolutely necessary to relieve the shipping bottlenecks that are harming manufacturing and exports. As the first link in the manufacturing supply chain, recycling is integral to the U.S. economy and is essential to the U.S. and global manufacturing supply chain, supplying commodity-grade recyclable metals, paper, plastics, glass and rubber as feedstock for the production of new materials and goods. Keeping the industry open means ensuring safe, reliable, and efficient modes of transporting those goods and materials throughout the country, as well as into external markets through ports. President Biden’s plan seeks to address many of the pressure points that congest the transporting and exporting of those valued materials, and we support the relevant actions proposed in his plan.

Moreover, using recycled materials is a sustainable solution towards combating the climate crisis and making infrastructure more resilient. With the industry recycling more than 130 million metric tons of commodity grade materials each year to transform outdated or obsolete products and materials into useful raw materials needed to produce new products, recyclers are an action-ready and reliable source of material for such a massive proposed infrastructure overhaul, offering real, sustainable solutions for environmental stewardship.

We look forward to working with members of Congress to influence a comprehensive infrastructure package that meets the needs of the recycling industry and the goals of the Administration to ensure reliable, climate-friendly solutions to alleviate our nation’s infrastructure woes.

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The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) is the "Voice of the Recycling Industry™." ReMA represents 1,300 companies in 20 chapters in the U.S. and more than 40 countries that process, broker, and consume scrap commodities, including metals, paper, plastics, glass, rubber, electronics, and textiles. With headquarters in Washington, DC, the Institute provides education, advocacy, safety and compliance training, and promotes public awareness of the vital role recycling plays in the U.S. economy, global trade, the environment and sustainable development. Generating nearly $110 billion annually in U.S. economic activity, the scrap recycling industry provides more than 500,000 Americans with good jobs.