Pete Chism-Winfield (running as past-chair)

Oregon DEQ's Peter Spendelow and ORRA's Kristan Mitchell sit down on OPB's "Think Out Loud" to discuss three things you should never put in your curbside bin. 

Story and Photo from Allison Frost/OPB.

Read more and listen here.

Press Release Issued by the National Recycling Coaltion on May 15, 2018

The China Crisis – Whose Crisis is It?
It is ours.  Recycled materials and trash should look very different from each other, but for years they have been converging in the U.S. 

Metro went live on Facebook on April 6, 2018 to answer the questions about recycling. In the 20-minute segment, Metro recycling experts Matt Korot and Patrick Morgan explained details on everything from what's going on in China and whether recyclables are going to landfills, to how to recycle plastics and where we could be headed in the future. 

Central Oregon Residents are asked to be more careful about what they put in recycling bins. On January first, China stopped taking most recycling from western nations, claiming recyclables were contaminated with trash and organic material. 

​KGW news reports,if the item has been on Metro's list of acceptable recyclables, it is still okay to put into the bin.

Shredded paper, egg cartons and most plastic containers now are bound for the trash in Marion County, which includes the state capital, Salem, the Seattle Times reports.

AOR-member Agilyx will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of their Tigard, Oregon polystyrene-to-styrene oil plant on April 19, 2018 at 10am. The ribbon-cutting will launch a week of celebrations, including plant tours by invitation from April 24-26, 2018. The plant is the first commercial-scale closed-loop chemical recycling process for polystyrene in the world.

Oregon State University's Materials Management Department, which combines the Campus Recycling and Surplus Property offices, has recently implemented some new programs to reduce waste and increase sustainability.

In response to China's recent policies restricting the amount of contamination in recyclables it accepts, Coos County has reduced its contamination in its recycling by 85 percent in just two months.