Oregon’s bottle deposit system is recycling more containers than ever before despite major disruptions in global recycling markets.

Last year, Oregon recycled 90 percent of the beverage containers covered by its bottle deposit system. The rate has jumped from 64 percent just two years ago and the total number of bottles recycled reached an all-time high of 2 billion in 2018.

Continue Reading at OPB.

From the CARTM Newsletter

As many of you know, CARTM lost its contract to operate the transfer station, effective December 31, with only 16 days notice. We spent those 16 days selling, then giving away all the donated merchandise before the facility closed.

McMinnville, Oregon, residents will soon be able to recycle polystyrene thanks to a partnership between Recology Western Oregon, the city’s waste hauler, and Agilyx Corp., Tigard, Oregon.

According to an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality waste generation report, Klamath County recovered 24.3 percent of the 78,171 tons of waste it generated in 2017.

The report, released in December, breaks down “recovery rates” — percentage of waste recycled — by both county and the state as a whole. Klamath County fell below Oregon’s overall 42.8 percent rate, but according to local and state waste experts, Klamath did well despite geographic and economic and barriers.

An end-of-year report from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality shows the state’s recycling rate in 2017 was 42.8 percent, slightly better than the previous year.

Doubling of the bottle deposit to 10 cents was a booster for Oregon’s recycling race. But recycling had setbacks too, including the closure of local paper mills that bought recycled paper and China deciding to cut off recycling imports from the United States.

Glass and paper recycling ticked up, while plastic, electronic and organic waste recycling declined between 2016 and 2017.

Metro is going back to the drawing board in its grand plan to convert the Portland area's food scraps into renewable energy, after failing to come to terms with Waste Management to build a processing facility in conjunction with the Portland sewage treatment plant in North Portland.

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.

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.