Debate rages over recycling definition.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - Packaging manufacturers want your old milk jugs and margarine tubs to be counted as recycled when they enter curbside bins instead of when they're melted down for new uses.

Eleven trade associations have petitioned the Environmental Quality Commission to change the way "recycling" is defined for the purposes of determining how much of it takes place each year with rigid plastic containers.

"Consumers should be given credit for everything they put in those bins," lawyer and lobbyist Paul Cosgrove said. He submitted the rule-change petition on behalf of those associations, which range from the Plastic Shipping Container Institute to the Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association.

The proposed rules aren't about validating the sense of virtue among Oregonians who recycle, though - they're meant to prevent tough new industry requirements from kicking in as a result of a drop in Oregon's recycling rate.

And they've drawn sharp criticism from environmentalists, including Jeremiah Baumann of the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. He said the industry groups want to "rely on proposed legal tricks to pretend that Oregon recycling rates are higher than they are."

The Department of Environmental Quality reported this month that the rate of recycling for rigid plastic containers dropped to 24.3 percent for 2005, the latest year for which the rate has been calculated. The agency also projected that the rate will be below 25 percent when the 2006 figures are calculated.

A 1991 recycling statute mandates a 25 percent recycling rate for rigid plastics. If rates fall below that threshold, requirements kick in for companies that package products in plastic containers to take additional steps to boost plastic recycling.

To comply with the law, companies will have to switch to containers made with recycled plastic, use a type of plastic that is recycled at a 25 percent rate or higher, or switch to reusable containers designed to be refilled at least five times. The law gives companies a year to meet the new standards, so changes won't be required until 2008.

Industry groups are pointing to the practice of "comingling" recyclables in curbside bins and carts as the main cause of Oregon's fallen recycling rate.

Peter Spendelow of the DEQ's solid waste program said about 20 percent of the plastic set out at curbsides slips through the process when newsprint and other items are separated. As a result, about 1,700 tons of plastics end up at newsprint plants, and get spit out as shredded, inky, pulp-covered garbage that can't be recycled.

Cosgrove said this is a problem in the recycling process that "shouldn't boomerang back on consumers and packagers" in the form of tougher standards for packaging manufacturing.

He called those requirements "a bit draconian" because manufacturers would have to meet separate recycled-content standards for goods destined for Oregon than for the rest of their national or global markets.

The DEQ's Spendelow said his agency's studies did not support the contention that comingling caused the drop in recycling rates. This practice does contribute to more plastic being "lost" but more than makes up for that by resulting in an overall increase in the volume of recyclable plastic placed in curbside bins and rollcarts.

The DEQ has until mid-April to respond to the request for a new definition of "recycling."

Spendelow said other options were available that could lead to a rebound in the state's recycling rate. They include expanding the types of plastic items that could be recycled in the Portland metro area, which, unlike Lane and Marion counties, accepts fewer types of plastics. Another possibility would be for processors to figure out how to recover more of the rigid plastic currently lost in the system.

A third option would be to expand the state Bottle Bill to include non-carbonated drink bottles. Spendelow said a key factor behind the drop in recycling rates was the decline in soda-pop consumption relative to juice and water packaged in plastic bottles. That's because the nickel deposit on soda results in a much higher recycling rate than for other drink bottles.

Rep. Vicki Berger, a Salem Republican and the Legislature's chief proponent of expanding Oregon's Bottle Bill, said Oregon's drop below the 25 percent mark in plastic recycling added impetus to that effort. "Expanding the Bottle Bill would help a lot in terms of getting us back to that standard," she said.

Check out David Steves' Capitol Notebook blog at www.registerguard.com/blogs/index.php/capnote. He can be reached at [phone] or [e-mail].