Oregon’s
recycling laws ARE AMONG THE COUNTRY’S BEST.
The
laws are found in ORS 459, 459A and 468.
Here’s
where much of Oregon’s recycling history lies:
1971
Oregon enacted its Beverage Container Act also know as the “Bottle Bill.” Approximately 90% of beverage containers purchased in Oregon are returned and kept out of the waste stream and landfills as the result of the bill. Found in ORS 459A.700-740, the Bottle Bill’s main components are:
►All carbonated beverages sold in Oregon must have a refund value clearly marked on each container;
►Dealers and distributors must accept the empty containers of the kinds, sizes and brands of carbonated beverages that they sell, and refund the deposits to those returning the containers;
►Dealers and distributors may refuse to accept containers with visible contaminants inside or more than 144 containers from one person in a single day;
►Convenient redemption centers may be set up by anyone approved by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.
1983
Oregon legislators passed SB 405, the Opportunity to Recycle Act. Today the state has a solid waste recovery rate of 35.7%. The Opportunity to Recycle Act moved Oregon’s recycling programs forward by:
►Requiring monthly curbside recycling collection programs in cities of 4,000 or greater;
►Requiring convenient recycling drop-off facilities in cities under 4,000;
►Authorizing local governments to franchise garbage haulers in order to meet the requirements;
►Requiring local governments to promote recycling and regularly provide education to the general public on how to recycle.
1991
The legislature unanimously passed Senate Bill 66 to enhance recycling programs and develop markets for recovered materials. It’s often called the most innovative recycling legislation since the Bottle Bill. SB 66 set the state’s overall recycling goal at 50% by the year 2000 and banned the routine landfilling of vehicles, large appliances, used oil, tires and lead acid batteries. It also required paper bags be offered by retailers wherever plastic bags are offered to help improve the market for one of Oregon’s recycled products.
SB 66 established the Oregon Recycling Markets Development Council, a Governor-appointed council, funded by the industries it served, primarily paper, plastics and glass.
The new law further enhanced recycling and waste reduction by requiring:
►Weekly curbside recycling collection, with container provided, in cities of 4,000 or more;
►Regular yard debris collection programs and the promotion of home composting;
►Programs to collect source-separated recyclables from businesses;
►Internal recycling programs for state agencies and the legislature and reporting on waste composition and recycling from all levels of government;
►Recycling and waste reduction education curriculum for Oregon schools;
►Expanded public education and promotion programs for recycling;
►Minimum post-consumer recycled content for newsprint, phone directories and glass containers;
►Certain rigid plastic containers to contain recycled material be recyclable in Oregon or be reusable at least 5 times;
►Procurement standards for all public agencies, giving preference to products with recycled content, and standards for the use of yard debris and sewage sludge compost by state government.
1997
HB 3456, the Omnibus Recycling Bill, added the definition of “waste prevention” to existing recycling statutes and established the option for waste sheds to include waste prevention, home composting and reuse programs in their recovery rates. The bill also requires:
*Waste sheds to adopt a new recovery goal, not lower than their 1995 goal or their 1996 rate, by July 1998;
*Waste sheds to, at least, maintain their 1995 required recovery rate or add 2 more program elements in their cities;
*Public demolition contracts to include salvage and recycling of debris, if feasible and cost effective;
*Local governments, choosing commercial recycling as one of their program elements, to actively promote it.
Also in 1997, HB 2402 required Oregon courts to print their filings on post-consumer content recycled paper, if the price is reasonable, and encouraged courts to do double sided copying.
TAX CREDITS
Three tax credit programs originated in the Oregon Legislature and frequently benefit Oregon businesses. Each program offers tax credits on recycling equipment. Though only one type of tax credit is allowed per investment, businesses may apply to all three programs.
These tax credits were intended to encourage investments in recycling and to help develop a recycling infrastructure in Oregon. Since the programs began, more than 1,400 applicants have received credits, totaling $141.4 million. The Business Energy Tax Credit accounts for about 68% of the total dollar value.
POLLUTION CONTROL FACILITY TAX CREDIT
This tax credit is available to facilities that accept and recycle or reuse materials that would otherwise go to landfills. Established by the 1967 Oregon Legislature to help compensate businesses for their response to new environmental requirements, the tax credit program was expanded in 1975 to encourage investment in technologies and processes that prevent, control or reduce significant amounts of all types of pollution.
The program is administered by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The amount of the credit may be up to 50% of the value of the eligible equipment, taken over 10 years. The claimed equipment must be used primarily to meet a state or federal mandate or for the sole purpose of recycling. Equipment that is eligible for the credit ranges from cardboard balers and recycling collection containers to that of large-scale recycling and processing facilities.
Legislative authority is found in ORS 468.150-190; ORS 307.405-430;
and ORS 315.304. Administrative Rules are found in OAR 340-016-0005
– 0050.
BUSINESS ENERGY TAX CREDIT
This program, created in 1979, provides credits for specific types of equipment to conserve energy by recycling. These credits are limited to the value of the eligible equipment that is associated with projects that develop new markets for recoverable materials or for recycling materials that are not required by law.
The program is administered by the Oregon Department of Energy and provides up to 35% tax credit for capital investments in recycling equipment, taken over 5 years. Equipment that may qualify for this tax credit includes trucks, collection containers and balers, and large-scale equipment for processing or manufacturing.
Legislative authority is found in ORS 469.185-225 and ORS 315.345
and 315.356. Administrative Rules are found in OAR 330-090-0105
– 0150.
RECLAIMED PLASTIC TAX CREDIT
This tax credit program was created by the legislature in 1989 to encourage plastics recycling and the remanufacture of reclaimed plastic products. Tax credits are available for equipment for collecting, transporting or processing scrap plastics for recycling or for manufacturing a reclaimed plastic product.
The program is administered by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The tax credit may be up to 50% of the value of the eligible equipment, taken over 5 years. Equipment that may qualify for this tax credit includes trucks, collection containers, granulators and washing systems.
Legislative authority is found in ORS 468.451-491 and ORS 315.324. Administrative Rules are found in OAR 340-017-0010
– 0050.
WHY REDUCE WASTE
AND RECYCLE?
Waste prevention
and recycling benefit Oregonians by:
*Reducing costs in the commercial sector;
*Cutting pollution and conserving valuable natural resources;
*Creating jobs and increasing competitiveness of manufacturing industries;
*Saving valuable landfill space.
REDUCING COSTS
·Stanton Construction, the company hired to demolish an entire city block in downtown Salem, Oregon in order to make way for the new Courthouse Square, saved $180,000 by diverting 91% of the demolition debris from landfills through reuse and recycling.
·Rogue Wave Software, a Corvallis, Oregon software company, reduced the number and size of boxes used to package manuals and disks for shipment to customers. This decision eliminated the use of 26,200 pounds of packaging material and saved the company $20,200 a year.
· Target Stores have saved $4.5 million in labor and $3 million in packaging costs by establishing packaging guidelines and charging vendors for excessive packaging.
· The Corvallis Area Chamber of Commerce reformatted its newsletters so that they can be mailed directly without envelopes, saving $2,100 and over 500 pounds of manila envelopes each year.
· Bergen Brunswig Medical, a medical supply company in Tigard, Oregon, saves $22,000 a year by reusing vendor boxes to repack and send products to customers.
· Norm Thompson Outfitters, Hillsboro, Oregon, reduced the amount of packaging used to ship soft goods, saving the company $98,600 a year.
· Super King Sentry Market, Milwaukie, Oregon, advertises to area residents using a weekly newspaper insert. Previously, 400 flyers were also placed at the store entrance each week. Most of these flyers were never read. By evaluating the number of flyers left over and reducing the weekly set out by 75 %, the store saves over $2,000 annually.
·U S West reformatted its residential phone bill to shrink customer bills from four pages to one. In Oregon alone, this saves U S West the cost of purchasing 140,000 pounds of paper each year.
·Tim’s Cascade Style Potato Chips, Auburn, Washington, redesigned its shipping boxes with a hole in the side to reveal package labeling, eliminating the need to add labels to the outside of boxes. This innovation saves the company $60,000 annually.
·IKEA, an international home furnishings retail corporation, runs a “Green As-Is” program at its Renton, Washington store. Returned or damaged goods are redesigned and rebuilt for sale at a discount. The program reduces about 1,000 cubic yards of solid waste and saves the company approximately $ 2,000 a week.
·Realtors in the Portland metropolitan area replaced their five-pound multiple listing books with an electronic version, saving nearly 400 tons of paper annually.
·Mentor Graphics, Wilsonville, Oregon, reduced office form use almost 40% by eliminating, consolidating and computerizing forms. These changes save the company $55,000 a year.
·The
Rebuilding Center, a Portland nonprofit organization, estimates that between
$8,000 and $15,000 worth of reusable building materials are reclaimed from
deconstructing one single-family home. Eighty
to ninety percent of the materials used to build an average home are recoverable,
leaving a small percentage to landfill. The
Rebuilding Center provides property owners with a detailed account of the
project, which they may use to claim a charitable contribution on their tax
returns.
·In 1999, Oregon Food Bank’s Harvest Share Program gathered and redistributed 1,056 tons of edible produce to Oregon families. From January through March 2000, eight Portland area produce wholesalers and retailers contributed 368 tons of edible food to the program and saved approximately $45,875 in disposal costs.
CONSERVING NATURAL RESOURCES
Materials collected for recycling have already been refined and
processed once, so remanufacturing the second time around is usually much
cleaner and less energy intensive than manufacturing from new materials.
*At current recycling levels, the United States saves enough energy through recycling to provide electricity to 9 million homes.
*Franklin Associates reports that a typical curbside recycling program that collects steel and aluminum containers, newspapers, glass and certain kinds of plastics, for every ton processed, will eliminate greenhouse gases of 620 pounds of carbon dioxide, 30 pounds of methane, 5 pounds of carbon monoxide, 2.5 pounds of soot and ash and varying amounts of other pollutants that contribute to global climate warming. In 1999 Oregon recycled 1.3 million tons of these materials.
*The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that source reduction and recycling at a 35 percent rate can account for 5 percent of the needed reduction in greenhouse gas emissions required in the U.S. Action Plan.
*Using recycled fiber to produce paper instead of virgin pulp reduces energy use by up to 74 percent and reduces pollution by 74 percent, including a 35 percent decrease in water pollution.
*It takes just 25 percent as much energy to make aluminum cans from recycled cans as from virgin ore.
CREATING JOBS AND INCREASING COMPETITIVENESS
Recycling provides manufacturing industries with less expensive
sources of raw materials, giving them a long-term economic advantage:
*New mills using recovered paper for corrugated boxes, newsprint and
commercial tissue products have lower capital operating costs than new mills
using virgin pulp. That’s why U.S.
paper companies voluntarily built or expanded more than 45 recycled paper
mills in the 1990s. In Oregon, S P
Newsprint Co. in Newberg is in the process of expanding its capacity to ultimately
handle 65,000 tons per year of mixed paper on top of the 250,000 tons of old
newspapers it already recycles each year.
*A recent study of 10 Northeastern states showed that recycling adds $7.2 billion in value to recovered materials through processing and manufacturing activities. Approximately 103,000 people were employed in recycling, processing and manufacturing jobs, 2.7 percent of the region’s total employment. For more examples, see under “Economic Benefits of Recycling”, below.
LANDFILL SPACE COMES AT A PREMIUM
Stringent federal municipal landfill requirements have prompted the closure of about 30 percent of Oregon landfills, operating in 1991. Much of the state’s waste is now transported longer distances to larger, more expensive, environmentally controlled regional landfills.
WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC
BENEFITS OF RECYCLING?
The materials collected in recycling programs are valuable commodities,
representing an essential component of today’s marketplace.
In the United States alone, 62.1 million tons of materials were recovered
from the municipal solid waste stream for recycling in 1998. Based on average national price information
for May 1996 and April 1997, these recovered materials have a total market
value of approximately $3.6 billion.
■Since a curbside recycling program was implemented in Madison, Wisconsin, the diversion of residential solid waste from disposal has more than tripled, while also decreasing the net annual cost of solid waste services from $158 per household to $139.
■A study of 10 Northeastern states found that processing and remanufacturing recyclable materials in the region added more than $7.2 billion to the value of the materials. According to the study, recycling also employed more than 103,000 people.
■The paper industry depends on recovered materials to satisfy current and projected fiber demands. The use of recovered paper at domestic mills is growing more than twice as fast as the use of virgin wood fiber. According to one industry expert, recovered paper will account for 47 percent of global paper-making fiber by 2010.
■In its six years of operation, the State of Washington’s recycling market development program, know as the Clean Washington Center, helped more than 500 companies use recycled materials in the manufacture of products. Finding new uses for such materials as glass, plastic, paper, tires and wood waste contributed to the creation of 14,000 jobs.
■From 1996-98, the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board’s Revolving Loan Fund made $1.4 million in loans to recycling-based businesses and manufacturers in California. These funds were used to leverage an additional $4.2 million in capital, divert 165,000 tons of material from the landfill and create or retain nearly 500 jobs.
■More than 4,500 different products and packaging, containing recycled materials, are available. The McDonald’s Corporation recently reported spending in excess of $1 billion to purchase recycled products. McDonald’s is one of a growing group of more than 2,400 businesses that have pledged to buy recycled products through the National Recycling Coalition’s Buy Recycled Business Alliance.
■The collection and recycling of materials can contribute more to the economy than sending the material to the landfill. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance projected that a single mill, processing 100,000 tons of old newspaper per year, can contribute up to $57 million in annual gross revenues to the local tax base of a city of one million residents. By contrast, disposing of the same material would cost the city $4 million in disposal costs annually (assuming an average tipping fee of $40 per ton)
Recycling is about job creation, tax base enhancement, economic and
industrial development, free-market enterprise, resource conservation and
environmental management. Although
the State of Oregon has not developed statistics specific to our state, many
other governments and industry groups have calculated the economic benefits
generated by recycling.
The economic benefits of recycling in Oregon haven’t yet been quantified, however hundreds of private companies, many of them AOR members, have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in such recycling investments as:
►Expanding drop-off and curbside collection
programs;
►Processing recyclables;
►Expanding, upgrading and retrofitting paper mills;
►Sorting and price-supporting recyclable plastics;
►Developing and expanding compost facilities;
►Processing glass;
►Purchasing products with recycled content;
►Starting up and diversifying recycling businesses;
►Testing, developing, marketing and distributing new recycled products.
HOW MUCH OF OREGON’S
WASTE IS RECOVERED?
In 1999, Oregonians recycled, composted and recovered 36.7 percent of their waste – a whopping 1.63 million tons of material from households, businesses and construction/demolition sites. This is equal to 985 pounds for each Oregonian. For materials, such as paper, glass, metals, plastic, yard waste and wood, the opportunity to recycle was available, and Oregonians recovered 54 % of these materials. The table below shows the major groups of materials recovered.
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Recovery
Here is a picture, by weight, of what made it into Oregon's growing recycling bin and the recovery rate for each group of materials
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The numbers look good, but there is still lots of room for improvement. During 1999 Oregonians sent an estimated 2.79 million tons of waste to landfills. This is 1,690 pounds of waste for every Oregonian. Visualize a line of garbage trucks, end to end, from Portland to New Orleans, and you get the idea. Five materials make up the largest portion of Oregon’s waste stream to the tune of nearly 1.17 million tons. They represent 41% of Oregonians’ disposed waste. With the exception of non-recyclable paper*, all of these materials can be recycled, composted or recovered for energy. The table below shows
the major categories of materials that went to landfills.
GETTING TO 50 PERCENT
In order for Oregon to reach its recovery rate
goal of 50 percent an additional 600,000 tons of waste needs to be recovered.
Here are some actions that will help Oregon reach its goal:
▲Collect food scraps for composting in urban areas. Pilot collection programs have already begun serving businesses and households in several cities in Oregon, Washington and California. ▲Develop more convenient curbside collection programs for yard trimmings, wood and plastic bags and containers in urban areas where markets exist for these materials.
▲Address the failure of markets for scrap tires, 98 percent of which were recovered in Oregon in 1994. Today the recovery rate is just 31 percent. Recycling tires at the 1994 rate would boost the statewide recovery rate by one full percentage point.
▲Explore policies and programs to address the growing number of materials in our waste products, for which recovery systems are weak or incomplete; such as carpet, wallboard, roofing, computers and electronics.
▲Work with manufacturers, encouraging their use of existing technologies to produce recyclable packaging to replace non-recyclable waxed cardboard boxes and plastic-lined bags.
▲Expand public and commercial education and outreach programs to illustrate how we can save resources and reduce our impact on the environment through our recycling and composting efforts.
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Waste
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based on its 1999 Material Recovery Survey.
Numbers have been rounded to the nearest whole number.
