Contact: EPA Press Office (press@epa.gov)

WASHINGTON (June 8, 2022) - Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $375 million in funding through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for new recycling, reuse and waste prevention programs. The Agency published three Requests for Information seeking input on the design of these new materials management initiatives, the first step in the process to implement the largest EPA investment in recycling in 30 years.

Did you know that the BottleDrop network is always expanding and adding new drop locations for your Green and Blue Bags? You can stay up-to-date on the most convenient options near you by viewing the location finder on our website. Just type your zip code in the search box and select “Drop Green or Blue Bags” from the menu, then click “Find Locations.”

You can also view a convenient location finder in our recently updated mobile app. If you haven’t yet downloaded the app, just search for “BottleDrop” in the App Store or on Google Play.

Oregonians have partnered with the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC) to raise more than $125,508 in donated bottles and cans over the last three weeks to support Ukrainians in crisis through Oregon’s Bottle Bill.

A total of $75,508 came from residents donating OR 10-cent bottles and cans, and the rest was matched by the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC). The funds will go to Mercy Corps’ relief efforts on the ground in Ukraine. 

ClearStream would like to help re-boot Recycling in 2022. Many of our members have enjoyed successful recycling with ClearStream products at their public space events (some for two decades). Recycling is here to stay and people are eager to come back to events! 

Now is the time to take advantage of your Purchasing Power before 2022 Product Price Increases! The driving forces behind the increases is our cost for raw materials, manufacturing and shipping. Now is the time to take advantage of your purchasing power! 

The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, including Americans’ waste disposal habits.

That was one of the big takeaways from two new Pacific Northwest garbage and recycling studies that were released recently. Both showed a serious uptick in the amount of trash people are generating and, in some cases, disposing of improperly.

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Georgia-Pacific (GP), Atlanta, has begun operations at its GP Toledo material recovery facility (MRF) in Toledo, Oregon. The MRF has applied GP’s Juno technology, which is designed to recycle highly contaminated recovered fiber and mixed materials.

Christer Henriksson, president of Juno Technology at Georgia-Pacific, says GP has been piloting Juno since 2013 at a plant in Savannah, Georgia, and began construction on its Toledo MRF about two years ago.

The U.S. EPA’s top environmental justice official has a message for recycling operators: Don’t wait for a conflict to arise to start engaging with the community that surrounds you.

Matthew Tejada, who since 2013 has been director of the U.S. EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, addressed the recycling sector on April 29 during the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries’ ISRI2021 online conference.

If food scraps from households are composted, should that count in the nation’s recycling rate? What if they’re fed to livestock or processed in anaerobic digesters?

Those are just a couple of the many questions the EPA is grappling with as it seeks to define exactly what “recycling rate” will mean. Last fall, the agency released a national recycling rate goal of 50% by 2030. Using current methodologies, the EPA estimates the U.S. has a 32% recycling rate.

A new paint recycling program beginning in the state of Washington allows households and businesses to recycle leftover paint, stain, and varnish conveniently and sustainably. The program is operated by PaintCare, a nonprofit organization created by the paint industry through the American Coatings Association (ACA) to manage leftover paint in states that have enacted paint stewardship laws. PaintCare will provide more than 200 drop-off sites across Washington, which include paint retail stores and locally managed government facilities.

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) announced March 30 that the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) will pay the state of California $1,175,000 in penalties for its repeated failure from 2013 through 2016 to meet recycling and landfill diversion goals under California’s Carpet Product Stewardship Law. The settlement agreement follows a California Third District Court of Appeal ruling affirming administrative civil penalties against CARE, which is an organization that represents carpet manufacturers.