Oregon Recycling Fee Law Blocked in Wholesale Distributor Case

A group of wholesale distributors convinced a federal district court to temporarily block Oregon’s latest plastics recycling law after the judge found the case raised serious issues about the state statute’s impacts on interstate commerce.

The US District Court for the District of Oregon Feb. 6 issued a preliminary injunction to stop the state’s Department of Environmental Quality from enforcing the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act against members of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors.

The wholesaler-distributor association argued Oregon’s recycling law unfairly invokes a higher packaging fee for entities that sell harder-to-recycle materials such as plastics. The law standardized ...