Failed my first CRP attempt back in March by about 9 points. I'd studied maybe 3 weeks, mostly skimming the ISRI materials, and thought my 12 years in the scrap yard would carry me. It didn't. The exam hits hard on regulations and market economics, not just operational stuff.
Second time I gave myself 8 weeks and averaged about 1.5 hours a day. I made flashcards for all the major material grades, contamination thresholds, and the relevant EPA and state-level regs. The section on commodity pricing fluctuations and downstream markets tripped me up the first time — spent a lot more time there the second go-around.
Ended up passing with a 76%, which isn't flashy but it's a pass. The biggest shift was treating it like a certification in business and compliance, not just recycling operations. Anyone else find the regulatory section disproportionately heavy compared to the operational content?
Same experience here. I work at a MRF and assumed hands-on knowledge would be enough. The commodity markets section wasn't something I could fake my way through. Ended up buying the ISRI study guide and it made a real difference.
I passed on my first attempt but it was closer than I'd like to admit — about 74%. The contamination rate calculations were something I practiced with real numbers from work, which helped a lot. Definitely not a test you can wing.
The pricing and markets section is legitimately hard if you haven't dealt with commodity trading. I'd recommend looking at actual LME data and understanding how ferrous vs non-ferrous pricing works. That clicked for me about 3 weeks before the exam.
Congrats on passing. I'm 9 weeks out right now and the electronics recycling regulations section is killing me. There's so much variation by state, it's hard to know how deep they go. Did you notice a lot of questions on e-waste specifically?
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