Curbside Management, located in Woodfin, North Carolina, is a single-stream recycling facility contracted by the City of Asheville to collect and process municipal recycling. One of the largest costs faced by Curbside Management is incurred through processing plastic bags and other film contamination. Through a review of existing literature and interviews with the owners and operators of Curbside Management, this research estimates the total costs associated with plastic film contamination for Curbside Management. Results outline the various forms of tangible and intangible costs of film contamination for recyclers and the situations under which these costs are most impactful to recycling businesses. This research also explores policies that would incentivize product lifecycle planning to help reduce the extra costs associated with processing products that are difficult to recycle.