By JORDAN ESSOE/YachatsNews.com
In a victory for customers, haulers and industry managers, agreements have been reached to allow Oregon residents to continue to recycle electronic waste for free at five collection sites across the state, including Dahl Disposal’s Waldport and Toledo recycling and transfer stations.
Eight collection locations were scheduled to be dropped Tuesday from Oregon E-Cycles, a manufacturer-funded state program that allows consumers free recycling of electronic waste. National Center for Electronics Recycling, which runs the E-Cycles state contractor program, planned to drop the collection sites because of an unprecedented 35 percent collection overage in 2021.
Protesting the changes were haulers like Dahl, which would have faced many new challenges if they wanted to continue to offer electronics recycling without the E-Cycles support.
Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, introduced a bill in the current session of the Oregon Legislature designed to fix the problem by raising the annual E-Cycles collection goal and making it mandatory that programs included any collection sites that wanted to participate. Marsh also convened and encouraged discussions between haulers, network managers, and staff from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees E-Cycles. Marsh’s bill will not become law, but the dialogue she helped advance produced two main solutions.
Dahl’s Waldport and Toledo locations will move to contract with Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Co., which runs an alternative E-Cycles network outside of NCER’s state program. MRM, which already works with other collection sites in nearby coastal towns such as Newport, has no official responsibility to acquire Waldport and Toledo.
While they did not initially leap at the opportunity to do so, they are now stepping in.
“We’re very excited,” Joseph Cook, general manager for Dahl Disposal, said Thursday. “Dahl was very active in working with elected officials, city councils, mayors, and state representatives, and had support from virtually everyone we spoke to.”
MRM is also picking up sites in Grants Pass and Tillamook.
A more creative solution was reached for Rogue Disposal’s hotly debated transfer station in White City. Projected to collect 600,000 pounds of electronics this year, White City is the largest collection site initially slated to have its E-Cycles contract cancelled. Rogue was in discussions with MRM last week, but White City will now become the only site for which NCER was able to reverse course and keep inside its network.
“The program will be run as usual,” said Jason Linnell, NCER’s executive director. “It’s just the source of the funding will be a little bit different in the background.”
The DEQ made that possible by reallocating funds it already collected from manufacturers through registration fees and from a budget change.
“We learned that the proposed changes would disproportionately impact several rural communities and wanted to do our part to ensure equitable access to the Oregon E-Cycles program,” Cheryl Grabham, the E-Cycles program manager at DEQ, told YachatsNews. “The solution was made possible because everyone involved was willing to contribute something to address near-term issues, and also agree to come back together later and discuss longer-term needs.”
Two Portland-area collection sites belonging to Far West Recycling will leave the E-Cycles program March 1 as originally planned. There are plenty of recycling options in the Portland area, Marsh said, “so no one is particularly worried about that.”
“I’m thrilled we found a resolution that will keep services intact for coastal residents,” Marsh told YachatsNews. “Now we need to get to work on a long-term solution that can come back to the 2023 legislative session.”
- Jordan Essoe is a Waldport-based freelance writer who can be reached at alseajournal@gmail.com
