Sustainable Packaging

Association Of Oregon Recyclers / Joel Schoening

July 29, 2022 Cory Connors Season 2 Episode 128
Sustainable Packaging
Association Of Oregon Recyclers / Joel Schoening
Show Notes Transcript

https://oregonrecyclers.org/

What should go in the blue bin? 
How can we make recycling easier for consumers? 
What is the association of Oregon Recyclers? 

Will you attend the conference October 26-28 in Bend Oregon? 

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https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

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Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is Mr. Joel Shoening . He's a communications director for Oregon's environmental council. Hey Joel, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Oh man. Thanks for taking some time. I'm excited to interview someone from Oregon because our state is so. Innovative and on the forefront of recycling. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what got you to this place? Sure, absolutely. Had an interest in environment and sustainability issues, as long as I can remember. I my mom took me to a no nukes protest. I think when I was like four or something, which is maybe dating myself a little bit, but uh, it's been lifelong for me. Professionally. I started getting closer to it during my graduate research. So I was teaching and studying in areas around sustainability and then really got connected to recycling specifically about five years ago when I was acting as the public relations manager for the Oregon beverage recycling cooperative, which operates organs. bottle deposit and return system. From there, I was elected to the board of the association of Oregon recyclers, which is really more where I'm speaking to you today, more so than, as a for my role at Oregon environmental council. So yeah, just kind being getting closer and closer to it over the, over the years. And it's I think, you know, I think about it as much as materials management as recycling these. Well, that makes sense. Yeah, it is. You're right. It is materials management. What are we doing with all this stuff that, that we've used and all the packaging and all the materials that makes perfect sense. Can you tell us about the Oregon environmental council? What, what kind of role do you do there? So director of communications. So I manage our all of our owned, earned media, digital and been at OEC for just about a year, OEC occupies an interesting history in this space because O C was instrumental in a passage of the bottle. Bill was one of O C's first, first big wins and really established O C helped establish OEC as a, as a force in, in Oregon state politics. That was back in 1971, I think. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Passed in 71 enacted in 72, I think. Awesome. The first state to, to enact a bottle bill, right? The first state to, yeah, keep one. It was, . Yes. Yeah. And then, you know, I think as I mentioned, I'm, I'm here also today, really in my role with AOR. So I'm now the vice chair for the association of Oregon recyclers association of Oregon. Recyclers is a statewide industry association. AOR is really interestingly. They are an industry association, but really because recycling is, you know, spans government agencies, AOR brings together. Individuals, , master recyclers and people who are interested, nonprofit organizations working in this space, local state, regional government who, you know, manage franchise contracts and set goals along with the industry players. The haulers, the MRF's , the people who are actually doing the recycling. So it's a super interesting table to then bring those to, to the state. So it's a great organization and I think really has a, has, is influential in the state's recycling policy. And that sounds like that's an elected position. So you, you ran by our members. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Fire member. Not publicly. Yeah. It's a fire membership. That's excellent. I'd love to hear about those. Are those meetings public. The board meetings. So board meetings aren't public we're, but we we're, we're pretty welcoming. We do have a conference every year where our board members elected and so our conference is in October. There'll be a lot of discussion there, the recycled modernization act and a lot of other current issues in state recycling. Oh, that's excellent and great lead into my next question. Let's talk about the the , the recycling modernization act. What's going on with that. Can you, can you tell the audience what that means and what it might do to our state? Sure. I'll start with the little bit of background that I think your listeners are probably familiar with, but right. There was a massive disruption in international recycling markets, right? We, so United States was exporting our. What we thought was being recycled in our curbside bins was in fact maybe being recycled, but definitely going many, many miles away to places we, that were, you know, that we didn't have a lot of regulation over or how that was being managed. So in Oregon, part of the response to that was the creation of a. A really robust engagement process to figure out how we could bring some trust back to our recycling system and really make sure that we could recycle more things, recycle them better. And that's the recycling modernization act. So That robust processing involved AOR haulers agencies a lot of different segments of recycling industry was proposed. I think in the 2021 session and passed and now was kind of in this implementation phase. So In my mind, we're in a little bit of a kind of wait and see period in that the, the department of environmental quality who's charged with setting up this new system has been hard at work. Getting ready to set up a new, a new system for the state. And so there's gonna be a few years of work yet before people are gonna see changes at their curb. But what's gonna happen during that time is. Involving the producers involving industry setting up the rules, turning how it all works. So from AOR perspective, we're really excited to watch that process, to participate in that process, to help watch dog it and shepherd it a little bit and try to make sure it lives up to its promise. But I'm, I'm very excited about it. I think it has a huge, huge potential to Really clarify, you know, what goes in the blue bin at the curb, and then making sure that what goes in there actually turns into something useful. Because right now there's just a lot of waste in the there's a lot of waste in the recycling system. And that shouldn't be the case. Yeah, well said there is a lot of waste and that that's a, a big issue. Will AOR have some oversight of the modernization act or is that more to EQ? Yeah, that's the EQ. Yeah. So I mean, though will be there's the there's some oversight committees. Being created for listeners who know Oregon government. We have a lot of committees and commissions and there will be committees and commissions and a AOR may choose to try and get involved with those. I think some of that's. To be determined. But we definitely have had participation in some of the early stages. And we were involved in the stakeholder engagement process. So we're pretty close to it and we're pretty committed to it. And we'll be keeping an eye on it. Right for those listening, I should explain what DEQ is. It's department of environmental quality. So yes, they're the ones who check our cars for our smog tests and are ultimately responsible for the whole environment in Oregon. Is that correct? They monitor water quality air quality. They have a, they have a pretty big portfolio. Excellent. What kinds of materials do you think will be additional to the recycle bin? Once this thing passes, do you have any thoughts on that? You know, that's gonna be really interesting. Hopefully a bunch of the plastics will come back in that aren't, aren't currently. You know you know, some of the lids and things like that, that aren't right now, the clamshells you know, some of the film all of that, hopefully a lot of that can come back. So. As your listeners may know already a lot of the challenges with that come with, you know, contamination and sorting. And if we that a little bit, the markets exist for that. So the challenges you there's and digress, I here a little bit, but one of the exciting things about the recycling modernization act. Right. It's an extended producer responsibility model. So part of what will come out of putting some, even some additional responsibility on producers is a funding stream for some public education. Right. Like, I don't know about like, I am in this industry and I still have to like . Yeah, right. Like, yeah, me too. Just some, some of the stuff I just don't use often enough. Right. I don't know what to do with this battery package or right. You know, like, and producers are innovating packages all the time, which is right. Your wheelhouse. And so, which is great and fascinating, but you know, sometimes our systems are new things are coming into this system faster and I think. The producers don't responsibility model will tie those together. So, you know, producers, if you, if you're wanting to introduce something, you gotta make sure the system is ready to accept it. Right. So that we can manage it. So that people aren't, you know, thrown it away when it can be recycled or, or, or contaminating the recycling stream was something that in fact should be waste. Yeah, really excellent point important that we think of think it all the way through and to put the onus on the manufacturers of the material makes a lot of sense or, or not even just on the manufacturers, but also on the people that use it for, to package their products that, that extended producer responsibility law. I think we're the second state Maine was first maybe. Yeah, I there's a, there's a good race there. Cause I think, I think we passed ours first. Goes into effect first or something like that. So what a great competition yeah, I interviewed Jordan from Tetra pack. Are you familiar with them? Yes. Yeah. So he's, he is been very involved with the whole process and talking about getting Tetra pack to, to be easier, to recycle more commonly recycled. And there's some really good commitments here going on with some really big companies that I think will affect some real positive change. Yeah, there's, there's been huge commitments in the last few years, and I it'll be interesting to see you know, two and a half years ago was the, you. The turtle and straw and right there was right. And there was a lot of focus on this in, in state, right? Like there was plastic bands on, you know I don't remember. It was like 30 or 40 states had some sort of plastics legislation. And we had to. Understandably change our focus for a little while, but I think that that focus is starting to come back. And I think people are still very concerned about about issue. So yeah, there's a lot of commitments and opportunity out there. Even California talking about banning single use plastic altogether. Yeah. And wow. What a, what a massive impact that'll have if it passes and I'm assuming, or again, we'll say, whoa, we wanna do that too. You know, and right. And then Washington will say, well, we did it already. We just didn't tell you cause that's how we do it in the Northwest. Right. that's right. We we've already announced it, but we didn't tell everybody. Yeah. Yeah. so what do you think companies can do to make big differences on , their sustainability? You know, I think from a from a life cycle analysis, right? Like just to, just to really get down to it, right? Like the biggest environmental impact. Virtually everything we create is the point of production. And second to that in a lot of cases is the end of life, right? So like as consumers in a lot of ways, like our impact as individuals on the life cycle of product, while, while it's in our hands is in the, is in its lowest. Space. Right? Right. So businesses, I think have a huge responsibility. So like if there's a business out there who can figure out how to build a business model on a product that's not planned obsolescence, right. A product that has a longer lifespan. And then it's recyclable reusable, repairable as it approaches or reaches the end of its life. That's where businesses need to go. Right? Like there's not really right. Like reduce the, the impact at the two highest points of impact, which is the beginning of the end. But that's really hard, right? Like, you know, how do you, yeah. Selling, selling more things is the common model. So how do you build a model where you sell things that have longer lifespan that are durable and are consumers willing to tolerate the, the cost of that? But I have faith in the power of multinational marketers. So I think it can be done. Yes, I agree. Yeah, it can be done and we can make recycling or reusing or repairing or refurbishing cool again, and you know, popular and financially viable somehow. Yes. Yeah. Great and pay skilled people to do. Yeah, right, right. Locally. Domestically. Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah, absolutely. I have a customer called Kershaw knives, Kai USA. And they, that's what they're all about. You know, let's send it back to us. We'll repair it for you. You don't need a new knife. Let's use this one for the rest of your life. And it's, it's a great system. They repair hundreds of knives a day to be. For many, many years, it's a family heirloom. So it's cool to see that product and that's, that is really, really cool in Tualitin it's in Oregon. So anyways, very cool. So what can Oregonians do to be more sustainable with, with packaging? How can they recycle more or. Or like you said, maybe repair more. Yeah. You know, I think that's, again, going back to the, to that previous point in a way I'd I'd I would say to large extent, Oregonians do a great job at this, right? Like it's, you know, people from. If you're not from here, it's something you get exposed to pretty quickly. When, when you, when you come to Oregon, if you are from here, it's in your blood. Yeah. We're good at it and we wanna do it and we wanna do it well, and we got mad when we found out that it wasn't being done. Right. Right. So like, to me again, it's really like, this is why the recycling modernization act is so exciting is because I think. The systems are actually delivering on what we already wanna be doing. Right. We're we're I think as a, as a community in Oregon, we're ready. Yeah. And excited and, but yeah. And excited. Yeah. But the challenges, the, I think the biggest challenges right now are, are outside are really. Very hard, right? Like as a consumer, it's like, it's, it's really hard to know what goes in the bin. It's dumb. It shouldn't be that hard. So my mind, you know, my, I really think we need to actually, we need to take the burden off people and we need to build the systems and structures that make it, that make it intuitive. Because. We thought it was intuitive. right. And, and, you know, you look at the bottom of the container and it's got the little three arrows on it and you're like, sweet. I put it in the blue bin. I'm good to go. And then somebody tells you like, oh, sorry, like that's a number seven. That's not a number one or a like, People come on. Right? Like, yeah. Even being able to use number seven as, as on a package is hopefully will be illegal soon. I'd like to see that happen. It should just say dump, you know, and that's okay. Right, right. Just trash van fill. Yeah. And that's, to me that is more sustainable than putting a seven, because if you put a seven, it goes into recycle bin and then the recyclers have to do all the work and all the effort to pull it out. And then they have to do all the effort and all the, the work to put it in the, the waste stream again. So, , let's do it right. The first. The the life cycle analysis is gonna be really important part of, of teasing that out and saying like, what is worth recycling? What is okay to, and throw away and what we not. Because it doesn't have an end market and it, and we shouldn't be putting it in a landfill. So I think those are big questions that, and DQ is doing great work in this area. It's just right. Again, the number of things that are coming market takes them a lot of catch up, but, but the work is there and it's gonna be really informative in, in giving us some. Indicators in what we should be using and what we should be recycling and what we should just not, not be using as much as possible. Yeah. Well said, thank you, Joel. How can people get ahold of you guys over there and, and be a part of the solution, At association of Oregon recyclers just check out our. A or association org, recyclers.org. Our, our board is all listed there and they can reach out to us. Our Amy Amy Roth, our resource coordinator does a fantastic work in fields. Most of those inquiries but we're glad to engage people in this process. Excellent. Well, thank you, sir. Really appreciate your time today and hope, hope this gets the word out about recycling in Oregon. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for your work and uh, looking us up. Yeah, appreciate it. And thank you, Landsberg Orora for sponsoring this podcast. If you're listening, please be sure to subscribe and make sure that you give us a review. We appreciate it so much. All right. Thanks Joel. Bye-bye.