Oregon Governor Kotek signed into law House Bill 3220. This bill modernizes the Oregon E-Cycles Program, which requires electronics manufacturers to offer Oregon households responsible and free recycling of computers, monitors, TVs, printers, keyboards and mice. The new law makes changes to the program –including expanding the types of electronics the program accepts; ensuring robust, stable, and equitable program services; and requiring the program to allow for reuse – to ensure Oregon E-Cycles’ continued success.
Created in 2007 by Oregon’s Electronics Recycling Law and overseen by DEQ, Oregon E-Cycles is one of the nation’s oldest state producer responsibility programs for electronic waste and a successful example of producer responsibility, a waste management strategy that requires producers to share in the responsibility for the end-of-life management of their products and materials. Launched in 2009, Oregon E-Cycles significantly expanded opportunities for Oregon residents to recycle electronic waste. Electronics recycling helps prevent toxins from entering Oregon’s landfills and recover precious and rare earth metals for new electronics. In 2022, the program collected 12.4 million pounds of electronic devices for recycling and 39,131 devices for reuse.
Despite the program’s achievements, structural changes became apparent after the network of sites providing collection services faced instability in 2022. HB 3220 arose through a series of public workshops DEQ convened between July 2022 and January 2023 to discuss options for these structural changes, as well as other changes to modernize and sustain the success of Oregon E-Cycles. The bill was passed unanimously by the members of the Oregon House of Representatives and 23-1 by the Oregon State Senate.
