The Legislative Assembly finds and declares that:

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(1) Oregon’s statewide recovery rate, which seeks to preserve public health, safety and welfare and conserve energy and natural resources, has declined each year between 2013 and 2018, and that Oregon is not on track to meet the statewide waste recovery and generation goals pursuant to the measurement methodology that the Legislative Assembly established in 2015.

(2) The way Oregon’s residents use and consume materials and products, and the way residents manage them when no longer wanted, has changed significantly in the 35 years since Oregon’s first recycling programs were established, that the state’s recycling policies were not designed to address such changes, and that these factors have created unintended consequences, such as the deterioration of natural systems regionally and worldwide, as well as increased levels of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change and reductions in human well-being, especially for the most vulnerable populations.

(3) It is necessary to adopt a policy that will minimize such unintended consequences across the entire life cycle of products and that will require producers of packaging and printed paper sold or distributed in Oregon to help finance the management of, and ensure an environmentally sound stewardship program for, their products.

(4) It is the State of Oregon’s policy to prioritize practices that prevent and reduce the negative environmental, social, economic and health impacts of production, consumption and end-of-use management of products and packaging across their life cycle, and that it is the obligation of producers to share in the responsibility to reduce those impacts. [2021 c.681 § 1]