Oregon packaging EPR fees 2026

Oregon's producer fees are membership fees under the Recycling Modernization Act in ORS chapter 459A, tracked as PR-US-002. The Act has been in force since 1 January 2022 according to DEQ's producer summary, while the 2021 session law (chapter 681, section 60) held back any member charges until 1 July 2025²³. Fees must meet ORS 459A.884 and follow the approach in the approved programme plan². Circular Action Alliance (CAA) runs that plan, amended on 12 September 2025 for 2025 to 2027, with 60 reporting and fee categories for covered materials⁶.

DEQ's summary sets out who pays. For packaged goods in physical retail it is usually the brand-owning manufacturer, or a licensed manufacturer where the brand is licensed; with no such party in the US, the importer; for remote sales, whoever packs and ships the item pays on the shipping packaging; publishers pay for newspapers and magazines; and the first seller into Oregon pays for food serviceware³. Two numeric tests take a producer out: worldwide gross revenue below USD 5 million in its latest fiscal year, or Oregon sales of covered products below a single metric ton; nonprofits, public bodies and single-location retailers with no online sales are also outside³.

The fees fund expansion and operation of Oregon's local recycling systems. CAA's quarterly report for January to March 2026 puts the 2025 to 2027 local government funding estimate at USD 88,435,328, with primary funding agreements signed with all 16 Priority A communities⁵. The same report shows the glass incentive paid at USD 79.08 per US ton in that quarter after a 2.7% inflation adjustment⁵.

CAA's method, as presented on 29 May 2025 for the first fee year, starts from total system cost (collection, transport, processing, access to capital and service expansion) plus other required funding such as reserves, regulatory costs and PRO administration⁴. It assigns those costs to each material, credits commodity revenue to the categories that earned it, and divides by the supply tonnage producers reported to reach a base rate per pound⁴. DEQ stresses the consequence: rates follow reported supply, so they change every year and late or missing data distorts them².

The 2026 schedule, first published on 29 October 2025, prints a base fee, a system investment (SIM) portion and a final rate for each line; SIM is zero on every row, so the final rate equals the base¹. There are no bonus or malus columns. The live rows on this page convert the printed cents per pound into US dollars per metric tonne.

SPI calculation: 64 tonnes of packaging owe USD 26,058.86 in 2026 Oregon fees¹. The PET bottles carry 63.5% of the bill, and the refill pouches, at 6.3% of the weight, add 14.6%, because flexible film pays 43.0 cents per pound against 9.0 cents for natural HDPE.

If the spray bottles were tinted, they would fall off both acceptance lists and pay 67.0 cents per pound, which on 30 tonnes is about USD 44,310 (SPI arithmetic, using 2,204.62 pounds to the metric tonne)¹. The refill format still lowers the brand's total if each pouch replaces a much heavier rigid bottle; the fee is charged on weight supplied, not on units.

Statutory and rule dates come from DEQ; the annual data cycle that sets each year's fees is run by CAA².

The 2025 per-material schedule was released to producers through CAA's portal, and the public explainer of 29 May 2025 gives only selected figures⁴. The one line printed on both years is wood and other organic materials, which fell from 108.0 to 105.0 cents per pound, or 2.8%; in 2025 it had been projected at 210.0 cents before final supply data came in⁴¹.

For other materials the 2025 explainer gives class averages: flexible plastics 76.7 cents, paper and fibre 7.6 cents and glass and ceramics 11.0 cents per pound⁴. These are not directly comparable with 2026 single lines such as glass containers at 10.0 cents or corrugated at 8.0 cents¹. The explainer reports that many final 2025 rates came in more than 25% below projections, while consumer corrugated came in more than 25% above, and that printing and writing paper was under-reported⁴.