The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $275,000,000 total from Fiscal Year 2022 to Fiscal Year 2026 for grants authorized under the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act. Projects funded through the funding opportunity will:
Implement the building a circular economy for all strategy series.
Improve local post-consumer materials management programs, including municipal recycling.
Make improvements to local waste management systems.
Eligible Recipients:
The entities eligible to apply for this grant were political subdivisions of states and territories. EPA considers counties, cities, towns, parishes, and similar units of governments that have executive and legislative functions to be political subdivisions of states and territories. Read the Eligible Applicants section of the Request for Applications for the full details (pdf).
Eligible Projects:
Materials and waste streams within scope of this funding opportunity include municipal solid waste, including plastics, organics, paper, metal, glass, and construction and demolition debris. This also includes the management pathways of source reduction, reuse, sending materials to material recovery facilities, composting, and industrial uses (e.g., rendering, anaerobic digestion), and feeding animals.
All applications must achieve one or more of the following objectives:
- Establish, increase, expand, or optimize collection and improve materials management infrastructure.
- Fund the creation and construction of tangible infrastructure, technology, or other improvements to reduce contamination in the recycled materials stream.
- Establish, increase, expand, or optimize capacity for materials management.
- Establish, improve, expand, or optimize end-markets for the use of recycled commodities.
- Demonstrate a significant and measurable increase in the diversion, recycling rate, and quality of materials collected for municipal solid waste.
Applications may include (but are not limited to) projects that fund:
- Innovative solutions and/or programs that provide or increase access to prevention, reuse, and recycling in areas that currently do not have access; including development of and/or upgrades to drop-off and transfer stations (including but not limited to a hub-and-spoke model in rural communities), etc.
- The purchase of recycling equipment, including but not limited to sorting equipment, waste metering, trucks, processing facilities, etc.
- Upgrades to material recovery facilities (MRFs) such as optical sorters, artificial intelligence, etc.
- Development of and/or upgrades to composting facilities or anaerobic digesters to increase capacity for organics recycling.
- Development of and/or upgrades to curbside collection programs or drop-off stations for organics.
- Development of and/or upgrades to reuse infrastructure such as online reuse platforms, community repair spaces, technology and equipment to improve materials management reuse options, food donation, and upcycling, staging areas for material reuse/donation, reuse warehouses, and reuse centers, and electronic waste and computer recycling and refurbishing.
Funding Source:
EPA
Funding Amount:
The total estimated funding for the competitive opportunity was approximately $40,000,000. EPA anticipates awarding approximately 25 assistance agreements under this funding opportunity, with at least one award per each EPA Region. The minimum individual award floor is $500,000, and the maximum individual award ceiling is $4,000,000 for the grant period. This funding opportunity is in alignment with the Biden Administration’s Justice40 Initiative.
Funding Deadline:
EPA is accepting applications until February 15, 2023.
Contact: If you have questions about the grants, email SWIFR@epa.gov.
More Information: https://www.epa.gov/rcra/grants-political-subdivisions