Even though Oregon is considered the third greenest state in the United States, and a national leader when it comes to recycling, Oregon’s waste-management programs are not actually recovering all of the state’s recyclable wastes. The cause of this tragedy is not that consumers and businesses are failing to put materials into designated recycle bins, it is that they are putting in too much – garbage that is. Another culprit is the environmental evil of the century—plastics. Constantly emerging new types of plastics have misleading or inaccurate recycling labels, which confuse well-intentioned consumers. And so, reusable materials become contaminated with waste that must be sorted out, often by hand. Given the massive volumes hitting transfer stations, waste-management companies cannot keep up with sorting challenges and are forced to find buyers for contaminated material. In 2017, China, one of the biggest buyers of such materials, stopped buying many types of waste from the United States. As a result, much of Oregon’s recyclable material has ended up in landfills.

In 2018, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality collaborated through a Recycling Steering Committee consisting of private and governmental associations, waste-related businesses, and the City of Portland, to reshape Oregon’s waste-management processes. The Committee worked to envision what a future recycling system should look like in Oregon, conduct research to inform decisions, gather feedback from other stakeholders, and recommend changes to achieve that future system. In September, 2020, the Committee released its framework to modernize Oregon’s waste-management system, which is intended to be consistent with the 2050 Vision for sustainable materials management adopted December 6, 2012. The new framework, in the form of recommendations to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, will require the state to pass legislation that DEQ is drafting for the 2021 session.

To read the full story, visit https://tonkon.com/ear-to-the-ground-blog/2020-11-13/oregon-rethinks-the-future-of-recycling.html.
Author: Jeannette Schuster, Tonkon Torp
Image: Tonkon Torp

Sponsor