Plastic container recycling in Oregon, USA

摘要

Peter Spendelow from the Solid Waste Policy and Program at Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality reports on the State's approach to plastic container recycling, in the face of declining capture rates during 2002. This may have been caused at least in part by commingling recyclables, with containers being lost at the sorting facilities. The recovery rate for rigid plastic containers showed a substantial decrease in 2002, falling from 31.1 per cent in 2001 to 26.2 per cent in 2002. The 2002 recovery rate is just above the 25 per cent recovery level targeted by the Oregon rigid plastic container recycling law and is the lowest rate recorded since the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) began calculating rigid plastic container recycling rates in 1993. The recycling rate for 1997-2000 had remained nearly unchanged between 28 and 29 per cent, falling from an earlier high of 30 per cent in 1995.