Plastics made up an estimated 390,000 tons of municipal solid waste (msw) generated in the united states in 1960. the quantity has increased relatively steadily to 31.8 million tons in 2011. as a percentage of msw generation, plastics were less than 1% in 1960, but had grown to 12.7% of waste in 2011. the overall amount of plastics recovered for recycling is relatively small. in 2011 it was 8.3% of all plastic waste. however, the recovery of some types of plastic containers is more significant. how many million tons of plastic waste were recovered for recycling in 2011?