The High Cost of the Oregon Outlier

Last month, we provided an overview of the developments regarding Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging laws in the US. This month, I wanted to dive deeper into one state that has generated the most questions and concerns about the direction of policy in the US, and that is Oregon. 

The Glass Packaging Institute (GPI) is working every day and in every one of these jurisdictions to improve the treatment of glass under the law and lower prices for glass using producers and suppliers, but Oregon bears special mention, having led the transition while navigating the most complex issues.

When the EPR for packaging movement began in the US around eight years ago, it was a reaction as much to municipal budget fallout from China's "National Sword" policy, which banned the import of most plastics and other materials destined for the country's recycling processors. 

This was particularly acute on the West Coast with California, Oregon and Washington state, with ready Asian export channels combined with stronger state environmental laws.

It is important for international readers (and frankly US readers as well) to remember that the base norm recycling system here is a commingled single-stream. Therefore, the local government pays to collect everything in one truck, and then (with some exceptions) private facilities take over to sort the materials and sell them on to commodity markets.

The blended commodity rate provisions in municipal contracts turned local recycling budgets negative due to crashing plastic and paper markets, which churned out low-quality material bales, put pressure on highly contaminated glass streams due to weight and low landfill pricing, and put pressure on local government budgets.

California legislators focused on reducing plastic, while Oregon wanted to address "responsible end markets" and bring transparency to where the material was going.

Oregon was also building on a couple decades  of  more  advanced  material management than most other states, and higher overall recycling rates because they never moved to a fully commingled bin and maintained an advanced beverage container deposit system.

Glass was done well in Oregon and still is. Other than deciding whether wine should be added to the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) rather than the EPR scheme, there was no indication that glass was a problem or a target in Oregon. Except for one thing...

Buried in the Oregon regulatory agency, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), is a reliance on the flawed tool of Life-Cycle Assessments (LCAs) to make material management decisions. The part of DEQ tasked with building out the regulations for this program was determined to use LCAs as much as possible to steer outcomes for recycling toward GHG reduction.

Oregon DEQ has turned the scheme into an expensive program seeking to manipulate end-markets. Despite glass being collected well state-wide in a hybrid combination of DRS return, community drop-off, and curbside separate collection, DEQ mangled the categorization of glass into a confusing mess.

This has led to a situation where glass using brands are inappropriately paying for transportation in the existing glass system and to build out the expensive new statewide depot system simultaneously. 

Furthermore, we are concerned that Oregon DEQ regulations are leaning toward outcomes that the legislature did not intend - making it more costly to use glass for food and beverage consumers so that the packaging market brands subsidize aggregate markets, such as ground glass pozzolan concrete substitutes, because that would compare favorably to using regular cement to make concrete.

Glass was identified as a 'special' material for extra fees despite a demonstrated history of wide acceptance and high recycling in the state - the entire program plan would only increase the volume of recovered glass over pre-EPR levels by 3-4k tons (less than 1%) of existing state glass recycling levels.

Eco-modulation bonuses require expensive LCAs to be run before even applying, making it more difficult and expensive for glass using producers (brands) to get any eco-modulation benefit for glass being non-toxic and inert and well-recycled in local and regional markets, with the highest regional recycled content of new bottles in the US.

Even though glass in Oregon had known, local, domestic regulated end-markets, DEQ is determined to reprioritize the disposition of the covered glass material rather than reward glass for its circular economy.

GPI will be working to educate the Oregon legislature in the coming months to these problems, which we believe were unintended when the law passed.

Three key reminders for readers as to why we believe Oregon is the outlier, not the standard. 

• Colorado approved its state Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO) Program plan in mid-December. Glass fees are one-third of Oregon. Glass also will benefit from eco-modulation for being locally recycled and remanufactured  as well as higher than average recycled content rates.
   
• California will be the next program to move forward with fees. The state understands the problems with using weight as a base for fees. The focus on plastic source reduction could be good for expanding glass market opportunities, and the glass fees should be more in line with Colorado, with potentially even more eco-modulation.
   
• No other state in the US that has enacted EPR for packaging has prioritized use of LCAs for fee determinations, let alone on top of basing fees on weight. 

If you are in the glass container industry and looking for more insight into EPR for Packaging and the issues that could impact glass, you can reach out through email .We will be working on the new standards protocols that the EPR regulations require and can help you with your customers' questions.

This article was originally published in the February/2026 issue of Glass International, available here.