PBS Frontline puts spotlight on Oregon recycling. How do some of the statements made on the broadcast hold up?

Video clip from PBS Frontline. Watch the full video at PBS Frontline.

4/20- Earlier this month, PBS Frontline shined a national spotlight into the roles of the oil and plastics industries have played in shifting the responsibility for disposal of single-use plastic products and other waste onto consumers.

The report, in an otherwise outstanding expose into the plastics industry, included two comments that deserve greater scrutiny.

"Few places have pursued recycling more aggressively than Oregon."

Although Oregon has a strong *distant* history with recycling as the first state in America to adopt a bottle return bill, the state has gone significantly backwards in terms of both policies and success in achieving its recycling goals.

It is true that Oregon has set lofty goals with respect to recycling. In 2012, the state set ambitious goals for recycling and recovery by 2050 but, as the chart to the right illustrates, the state has gone backwards in terms of achievement with respect to material recycled or recovered.

The most recent aggregated data, which predates the Chinese "National Sword", shows that Oregon recycles a lower percentage of waste than we did as a state in 2000. In other words, we are throwing away more material and recycling or recovering a lower percentage of that material than we were 20 years ago.

ince the "national sword", Oregon regulators have increased the amount of material that can be land-filled rather than recycled in recent years, citing laws that allow material to be land-filled if it is more economical -- so Oregonians are paying more for less material being recovered.

The two charts below show how far Oregon has fallen behind its goals as a state.

"Packaging is evolving"

This is true. More packaging that has zero recycling and recovery value is coming into Oregon's product stream because it is less expensive to manufacture and ship. Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) advocates for increasing the of this type of single-use packaging, which is also advocated by the plastics industry.

These analyses do not take into account secondary costs of plastics in our environment relative to other materials.

More than $500 million is spent in Oregon, Washington and California to clean plastics from our waterways and beaches.
The secondary environmental impacts of plastics on marine life and the health of our oceans is massive.
Humans are ingesting or inhaling as much as 5 grams of microplastics per week.