The third iteration of Oregon’s program plan had more accurate cost estimates, after Circular Action Alliance carried out a survey over the summer. | Nadia Yong/Shutterstock
Oregon moved its rulemaking process ahead for its extended producer responsibility for packaging law set to roll out next summer, and Circular Action Alliance also released its third program plan draft.
Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission passed the second and final set of rules to implement the Recycling Modernization Act in late November, approving permitting standards and fees related to MRFs, living wages and supportive benefits for facility workers, generator-facing contamination, covered product exemptions, standards for environmental impact evaluations and disclosures, and the waste prevention and reuse fee.
The first set of rules were approved roughly a year ago and covered standards for compensation of local governments, requirements for producer responsibility organizations (PROs), standards for responsible end markets and the first iteration of the statewide recycling acceptance lists. They also dealt with convenience standards, performance standards and collection targets that the PROs must achieve.
Maine also recently approved its final rules for its packaging EPR law. Colorado, California and Minnesota are the other states that have passed packaging EPR in the U.S., and all are working through implementation at varying speeds.
Nicole Portley, the EPR program plan lead at Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality, told Plastics Recycling Update that the rules will create “a solid foundation for important updates to Oregon’s recycling system.”
This set of rules touches key topics like fees, and also ancillary areas like product design, Portley added. DEQ and Circular Action Alliance, a national PRO and the only PRO to submit a program plan in Oregon, have already started working with communities on implementation, especially the top-priority communities that will not be able to meet the new requirements without investment into their systems.
“We’ve hired new regional staff, and they are providing technical assistance to local governments, and CAA this month is reaching out to local governments and service providers,” Portley said.
While July 1 is the official start date, and therefore significant, Portley cautioned that major infrastructure improvements can’t be done overnight, but “by the end of the first program plan period, at the end of 2027, change will be palpable to many.”
And even though much of the change in the early years will happen downstream of the average consumer, Portley said depending on where communities are starting, they could see a significant change in what they can recycle fairly soon.
Producer and MRF fees come into focus
Under the rules, the permit and registration application fee for MRFs will be between $100 and $500, and the annual compliance fee will be between $50 and $1,000, both depending on the anticipated tons received annually by the facility. DEQ only has authority to charge fees to in-state facilities.
The waste prevention and reuse fee, paid by the PRO, will be up to $15 million or 10% of the three-year average of PRO expenditures annually, and is directed by statute to fund grants focused on reducing the impacts of covered products through material reduction and reuse.
As for the living wage, the rules set that by county, ranging from $23 to $32 an hour.
The rules also note that from 2026 onward, the PRO will set producer fees using supply data from two years prior to that program year – so for example, 2028 fees will be set using 2026 supply data.
The PRO is also directed to pay a processor commodity risk fee to MRFs. That fee will be calculated by multiplying the total eligible tons by the fee rate, minus the average commodity value. The fee rate is $200 for 2025 and 2026, $286 for 2027 and $245 for 2028 and all following program years. The fee fluctuates due to the living wage and supportive benefits kicking in Jan. 1, 2027 and different levels of equipment-related costs as the program rolls out.
DEQ will set the average commodity value monthly, using price data from RecyclingMarkets.net and the Secondary Materials Pricing and Waste Paper Composite Index, the rules stated.
The PRO will also have to pay MRFs a contamination management fee, which is the fee rate multiplied by the tons of eligible material multiplied by 0.467. The fee rate is $341 for 2025 and 2026, $432 for 2027 and $418 for all program years after 2027.
The per-ton fee paid to recycling processors is meant to “ensure producers share in the costs of fully processing commingled recyclables that are covered products,” the rules noted, and it is one of the largest costs the PRO will incur.
Producers have an option to register early
The rules introduced producer pre-registration, requiring producers to submit 2024 supply data to the PRO by March 31, 2025. Portley said the choice came out of conversation with CAA and the realization that it would be difficult to set accurate, right-sized fees without a clearer idea of supply.
“We saw it was a benefit to the producer ultimately, adding that deadline, although they need to do some work to get that report ready,” Portley said, as fees will be more accurate and likely lower than if CAA had to estimate.
The rules clarified that “failure to pre-register does not prevent a producer from registering with a producer responsibility organization and beginning to pay member fees on or after July 1, 2025,” and the requirement does not apply to small producers.
On the facility side, the rules note that MRFs are required to get their permit and certification, provide living wages and supportive benefits to workers and use end markets that have been verified “responsible.”
DEQ plans to pay the initial cost to assess performance standards for the permitting program, using permitting and permit tipping fees. The department estimated that the costs associated with conducting those assessments every two years will be about $430,000.
While paying workers living wages and providing supportive benefits will increase cost, the rules noted that the costs will be paid through the Processor Commodity Risk Fee, which is funded by the PRO. As for the fiscal impacts of the responsible end market obligations on the MRFs, “DEQ anticipates temporary, but not long-term fiscal impacts,” as it is also eventually paid for by the PRO.
The benefits include health insurance coverage, including vision and dental; disability insurance; life insurance coverage of at least $10,000 and no less than five years provided at no cost to the worker; paid time off, including at least five days of sick leave and 10 days of vacation or discretionary leave.
Additional tweaks cover product definitions, life cycle analyses
The new rules modified the definition of food serviceware to better differentiate it from packaging, proposed three subcategories of packaging to clarify which packaging-like products are in the scope of the law and proposed exemptions for five categories of packaging. Those include packaging that stores a durable good for five or more years, some medical devices, infectious waste packaging used in healthcare facilities, packaging of some agricultural chemicals and some reusable and refillable pressurized cylinders.
In addition, the rules set standards for life cycle evaluations and directed local governments to submit an implementation plan for multifamily recycling enclosures by Nov. 1, 2027, to be implemented by July 1, 2028.
Large producers will need to perform a life cycle evaluation every other year of at least 1% of the covered products that they sell or distribute in or into Oregon. Any producer can voluntarily perform a life cycle evaluation in order to receive an ecomodulation fee adjustment. The evaluations need to consider plastic leakage impacts and must disclose hazardous substances embedded in products.
DEQ accepted public comment on the proposed rulemaking from May 29 through July 26. It received 62 comments from 76 entities, suggesting 436 changes to draft rules.
The department made several changes in response to comments, including clarifying that Class II violations do not apply to accepting or promoting materials not on the USCL if the activity occurs as part of a trial or research program; moving up the due date for multifamily plans, delaying the date a PRO must accept aerosols and pressurized cylinders to Jan. 1, 2028; putting gift wrap back on the Uniform Statewide Collection List; and updating definitions of polyethylene film and packaging and paperboard boxes and packaging.
It also expanded the exemption for plastic packaging to specific agricultural products and added a requirement for regularly occurring third-party audits, along with revisions of the life cycle evaluation rules.
Producers hone in on compliance plan
CAA on Dec. 6 submitted its third draft of its plan for meeting Oregon’s EPR regulations. The first draft was submitted in April 2024, and the second in September. The second draft needed more work on system expansion, transportation reimbursements, additional local government funding, convenience standards, performance standards, financing, equity and management and compliance, according to the DEQ.
In the third draft, the financing section of the plan included a table with an updated base fee schedule for 60 material categories, as well as flat fees and tiered uniform fees for low volume producers. The section includes incentives and ecomodulation, but it noted that until producers report actual weights of supplied materials in the first quarter of 2025, CAA can only provide fee methodology and draft base fee estimates.
Portley said that the new plan will undergo a two-month DEQ review.
“We’ve been running a strong race here and this is, in some ways, the final lap,” she said. “Although, we’re not yet to the start line,” which will come in July with the rolling implementation.
Overall, the program cost estimates, especially around system expansion, are lower than in past plans, due to more refined data and some changes to the plan. The original program plan had a total system expansion funding estimate for 2025 through 2027 of $356 million to $463 million, and that is now just $81.5 million.
Aside from using better data instead of estimates, CAA noted that costs decreased because it is not scheduling requests for new trucks and carts for curbside collection of glass and it identified communities that could share resources between themselves, such as trucks or reload facilities.
Based on DEQ data, CAA estimated a baseline plastics recycling rate of 17.05%. The 2028 recycling target is 25%. The plan also suggested annual collection targets and rates for depot dropoff of specific material as follows: PE film, 1,950 tons, a 5.9% collection rate; aluminum foil and pressed foil products, 390 tons, a 6.2% rate; block white EPS, 490 tons, a 9.2% rate; PE and PP lids and HDPE package handles, 290 tons, a 10% rate; and plastics buckets, pails and storage containers, 975 tons, a 15% rate.
CAA also added more detail on data collection steps and metrics for tracking program successes and producer compliance, and how it is prioritizing financial assistance requests from local governments on a six-level system, with the highest level of priority assigned to governments that would not be able to provide recycling services without the aid. But regardless of priority, all eligible costs are expected to be funded by the end of 2027.
“Given the anticipated cost of local government infrastructure service expansions, CAA will not be in a position to fund service expansion requests until it is receiving revenue from obligated producers,” the plan noted. “Actual local government service expansion disbursements, therefore, are anticipated to begin after the July 1, 2025 program start date, with CAA prioritizing funding requests in accordance with RMA rule priorities.”
On transportation, CAA is suggesting switching to a per-hour reimbursement model instead of one based on mileage, due to feedback from rural communities that do not have highways. The plan also laid out details about additional reimbursement for local governments around contamination reduction programs, using PCR in roll carts and measures to protect ratepayers from increased costs.
CAA is also suggesting some changes to the universal collection list, such as adding transparent blue and green PET bottles, and eventually PET thermoforms, PP and PE caps, lids and carriers, aluminum foil and empty, non-hazardous aerosol containers and polycoated paper packaging and single-use cups.
In addition, the group is requesting a delay in the deadline for the convenience standard requirement for block EPS collection, to allow CAA to use a phased approach and have a statewide block white EPS collection program active by 2032.
Finally, in the convenience standards section, CAA reached out to likely participating partner locations, such as thrift stores, Oregon E-Cycles electronics recycling sites and hauler yards to add collection sites, and is working to set up 118 potential depot sites across the state to start. For residents with disabilities who are unable to take their materials to collection points, CAA is suggesting partnering with franchised residential haulers to provide at-home collection.
A version of this story appeared in Plastics Recycling Update on Dec. 11.