From the Salem Reporter, by Troy Brynelson

A proposed hike in garbage bills will get a public hearing at Salem City Council next week. Staff reports released Thursday suggest the six garbage hauling companies are struggling in 2018.

Art Kuenzi played a sort of garbage man’s roulette Thursday morning. Every blue recycling bin on Southeast 45th Avenue could be good or bad.

Good meant flipping open a bin to find cardboard, newspaper or dry plastic milk jugs. Bad bins held soggy fast-food cups or cheap plastic packaging.

From Press Release:

AmSty and Agilyx have signed a Letter of Intent to form a joint venture that will assume operations of Agilyx’s first-in-kind polystyrene recycling facility in Tigard, Oregon. The process converts used polystyrene products back into their original liquid form, styrene monomer. Fresh polystyrene products can then be made without degrading quality or value. This form of circular recycling is known as the PolyUsable™ process.

From GreenBiz, by Jan Dell and Marcus Eriksen

From Resource Recycling, by Colin Staub

WestRock and other players in the paper supply chain recently completed a pilot project that collected and recycled 25 million fiber cups from Starbucks.

Through the pilot project, collected Starbucks coffee cups were sent to recycled paper company Sustana, which used the material to create 100 percent post-consumer recycled fiber.

The English-speaking world's growing concern for the environment and the ubiquity of disposable items that are used only once has pushed the word "single-use" to the top of Collins Dictionary's list of "Word of the Year."

Collins says there's been a fourfold increase in the usage of the word since 2013, in part thanks to news coverage of environmental issues.

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Attendees of the inaugural Capital Markets Conference, a Waste Today event held in Chicago Oct. 17-18, 2018, heard from presenters with viewpoints on how the lower value of collected recyclables is affecting the bottom line of waste and recycling firms.

From Recycling Today, by DeAnne Toto

In response to changes in Oregon’s recycling laws, the opportunity to recycle is being extended to all residents and businesses that share garbage collection service provided by a middle party, such as a multi-tenant property owner or property manager, regardless of the number of tenants sharing service. The change will require cities and counties to ensure tenants and owners receive recycling collection by July 1, 2022.

DEQ wants your comments, and you have one month left!

AOR has recently learned that The Gray Family Foundation’s environmental education grant program will be making a few extra grants in 2019 (applications due December 1, 2018).