About NRC
A coalition built to connect the whole system.
NRC is an independent national nonprofit that brings together recycling organizations, public agencies, businesses, nonprofits, educators and professionals around stronger recycling and sustainable materials management.
NRC has grown with the recycling field while keeping the same core idea: progress speeds up when the people doing the work are connected.
Mission + vision
Leadership, connectivity and support for recycling across North America.
NRC serves as an umbrella for recycling organizations and stakeholders across the field. The coalition develops partnerships, shares information, advances policy and creates opportunities for practitioners to learn from one another.
The direction is broader than managing waste: strengthen systems that keep materials in productive use and make circularity practical at community, state and national scale.
Recycling is not one program. It is a network of policy, infrastructure, markets, behavior and people.
How NRC works
Four verbs. One coalition.
Connect
Bring state organizations and cross-sector practitioners into durable working relationships.
Translate
Turn national developments into usable information for communities, and turn local experience into national insight.
Convene
Create space for serious discussion, peer learning and shared problem-solving.
Advance
Support policy and programs that improve recycling, reduce waste and build credible circular systems.
2026 work plan
Focused on the coalition's connective tissue.
NRC's 2026 priorities include stronger relationships with affiliated State Recycling Organizations, stakeholder partnerships, continued plastics-policy engagement, a workshop and webinar pipeline, expansion of the Campus Council, regular Recycling Organizations Council programming, and planning for the next National Recycling Congress.
Stronger SRO relationships
Build practical value for affiliates and make NRC a useful extension of state organizations.
Stakeholder engagement
Move plastics and other policy work through broader evaluation and implementation discussion.
Workshops + webinars
Create a consistent national learning rhythm across NRC and partner networks.
Membership
Build the system with us.
Join the practitioners, organizations and state networks working to make recycling stronger, more credible and more connected.
Turn belief into support
Good ideas need people.
Progress needs you.
Help NRC bring recycling education, outreach and practical knowledge to more people.