Dive Summary:

• In an effort to ascertain how to increase the volume of plastics recycling across the state, Oregon will be conducting a study that looks into the disposal and recovery of plastic throughout its life cycle.
• The state hopes the findings will grow the diversion rate and give the state insight into how to expand the types of plastics collected for recycling, not just PET or rigid plastics.
• ​The research is part of a broader study that the state implemented in order to coordinate a plan for plastics management by 2050.

From the article:

“There’s a lot of potential to get a lot more plastic. It also is very possible that we will simply determine there is a good reason a lot of this stuff isn’t being collected because there’s so many different varieties that you can’t get enough of a single type other than the general commodity plastics that are currently being recycled,” [recycling specialist with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality] Spendelow said 

Spendelow said "We thought maybe there are things we could be getting more of, things like polypropylene and products, for instance. We just don’t have a lot of product recycling. It’s mainly packaging recycling. So that’s what we want to investigate.”