SWANA Oregon Beaver Chapter is happy to invite AOR members to their first annual Winter Social! It's our way of showing our appreciation for our members and friends—a time to relax, mingle and enjoy yourselves. All AOR members and their significant others are invited for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. We're hoping to get a head count soon, so please RSVP using the short form here. If you have questions, please contact info@swanaoregon.org.
 
 McMenamin's Edgefield

Metro offers a look into the recycling pipeline, from cart to commodity, complete with behind the scenes videos of are MRF processing lines. Great article to share and show what it takes to get those recyclables to market and beyond.

Read more here.

Flexible packaging isn’t going away anytime soon, and an upcoming pilot project seeks to ensure it doesn’t go to landfill.

In the coming months, additional sorting equipment will be installed at the Total Recycle materials recovery facility (MRF) in Birdsboro, Pa. The retrofit will allow the facility to begin generating bales of post-consumer flexible packaging, defined as single-layer or multi-material films such as chip bags, stand-up pouches, candy wrappers, retail bags and more.

In a mass of discarded food, Los Angeles County sanitation planners see far more than a waste-disposal problem—they see a resource. A bucket loader digs into the mass and hoists a load of glop into a grinder. Seconds later, the chewed-up food waste pours into a bin, its first step toward the anaerobic digesters that will blend it with household sewage and use it to brew biogas, manufactured methane suitable for use in running a county wastewater plant.

What began as an anti-littering measure has become an overwhelmingly popular recycling policy. But after more than 40 years of regularly returning more than 90 percent of bottles and cans, Michigan remains one of of the worst states for recycling in the nation. Michigan only recycles 15 percent of all possible materials, compared with a national average of 35 percent.

The Oregon Legislature is reportedly mulling to enforce a statewide ban on plastic straws and a tax on plastic bags.

DEQ is pleased to announce the long-awaited release of a critical meta-analysis of packaging materials asking the basic question: ‘Do popular packaging attributes including recycled and biobased content, recyclability and compostability correlate with lower environmental impacts?’

Oregon’s iconic Bottle Bill is being celebrated with a new sculpture in Salem. In 1971, Oregon became the first state in the nation to require a deposit on beverage containers for soda and beer. That landmark legislation is the inspiration for a new nine-foot-tall steel and aluminum sculpture in downtown Salem.