Oregon packaging EPR

Who's covered

Oregon's law covers three kinds of covered products: packaging (including single-use bags and shipping materials), printing and writing paper, and food serviceware.³ The company responsible is the producer, identified by a ranked list:^4,5

• The manufacturer, if the product is sold under its own brand or carries no brand. Oregon's rules say a manufacturer includes whoever directs the manufacturing, including setting the packaging specifications, so a brand that uses a co-packer is normally treated as the manufacturer.
• The licensee, if someone other than the brand owner makes the product under a licence.
• The US importer, if neither of the above is in the United States.
• For online and remote sales, the shipping packaging belongs to “the person that packages and ships the item to the consumer.”
• Anything else falls to the first distributor into Oregon.

For a fuller walk-through, including co-packers, private label and franchises, see Are you the producer?

Small-producer exemption

You are exempt as a small producer if you meet any one of these tests:^3,6

• Gross revenue under $5 million in your most recent fiscal year. DEQ reads this as global revenue, not just Oregon sales.
• Under 1 metric ton of covered products sold into Oregon in the most recent calendar year.
• A beverage manufacturer that sold under 5 metric tons.
• A nonprofit, a public body, a restaurant or food cart (unless it produces food serviceware), or a single retail location with no online sales that isn't part of a franchise or chain.

The revenue and tonnage of affiliated companies must be combined when applying these tests.⁵

Excluded products

The statute and rules exclude, among other things: bottle-bill beverage containers; bound books; prescription and over-the-counter drug packaging; infant formula, medical food and fortified nutritional supplements; packaging that federal law requires to be labeled “do not recycle”; certain sterile medical-device packaging; and packaging meant to protect a durable product for five years or more.^3,7

What you have to do

Since July 1, 2025, every producer that isn't exempt must be a member of a producer responsibility organization (PRO). Circular Action Alliance (CAA) is the only approved PRO in Oregon.¹ In practice, being compliant means four things:

1. Register with CAA and sign its producer agreement.
2. Report each year the weight of covered products you sold into Oregon in the previous calendar year, split across roughly 60 material categories. The 2025 data report was due May 31, 2026, and CAA uses it to set 2027 fees.^1,8
3. Pay the fees CAA invoices. 2026 fees were invoiced in January 2026, in two installments, based on 2024 data.⁸
4. Keep records that support your report, and provide them if DEQ or CAA asks.¹

The 25 largest producers by market share have an extra duty: life cycle evaluations of at least 1% of their covered products every two years, with the first reports due December 31, 2026 for most of them.⁹

What it costs

Fees are a rate per pound for each material category, set by CAA to cover the program's costs. Your bill is the pounds you reported in each category, multiplied by that category's rate. Selected 2026 rates:¹⁰

Selected categories from CAA's 2026 Oregon fee schedule. The full schedule has about 60 categories.

Three things in that table are worth knowing:

• Flexible packaging is expensive. PP film and multi-layer pouches cost more than ten times as much per pound as cardboard.
• Category choice matters. PE film is less than half the rate of PP film, and transport corrugated removed before the consumer is 0¢.
• Eco-modulation is just starting. Oregon pays bonuses, not penalties: Bonus A (from the 2026 fee year) is worth 10% of a SKU's base fees, up to $20,000, for disclosing a life cycle evaluation. Two further bonuses begin in 2027 or later.^9,11

Producers can also claim an exemption for material they collect and recycle privately through a responsible end market. Claims for 2027 fees were taken from January to March 2026, and the next window opens in January 2027.⁶

For how fees are built and how to lower them, see How EPR fees are calculated.

Enforcement

Oregon has the most active enforcement of any state so far.

• Public listing. CAA must report producers that haven't paid or reported. DEQ then sends a warning letter with 30 days to fix it, and producers that don't are named on a quarterly producer status list. The first list, dated April 9, 2026, named about 250 producers.^12,13,14 See Oregon's non-compliance list, explained.
• Penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation.^15,16
• Sales. At DEQ's request, the Oregon Department of Justice can go to court to stop sales of a non-compliant producer's products.¹⁶

The court challenge

A trade association of wholesaler-distributors (NAW) sued in 2025 and won a preliminary injunction in February 2026 that covered only its members. In August 2026 the federal court ruled for the state on every remaining claim and lifted the injunction. DEQ's position is that the law is in full effect.^17,18 NAW has appealed to the Ninth Circuit.¹⁹ A separate class action filed in June 2026 led to a temporary pause on some DEQ pre-enforcement notices through August 31, 2026.²⁰

What's changing

• DEQ rulemaking. DEQ is updating the program rules, including producer definitions, obligation assignments and exemptions. Public comments close October 30, 2026, with adoption expected in early 2027.²¹
• Program plan. CAA is amending its current plan and consulting on its 2028–2032 plan.²²
• 2027 fees. The 2027 fee schedule, based on 2025 data, is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. We will update this guide when it is published.

What to do now

1. Confirm whether you're the producer for each product sold into Oregon, including online sales.
2. Check the small-producer tests using global revenue and Oregon tonnage.
3. If you're obligated and not registered, register with CAA now and ask how earlier periods will be handled.
4. Check your status. Search CAA's registry of compliant members and DEQ's latest producer status list.²³
5. Review your category coding before the next report. Misclassified packaging is one of the easiest ways to overpay.

Related guides

Sources

1. Oregon DEQ, Producers of covered products. oregon.gov/deq
2. Oregon Revised Statutes ch. 459A (Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act, SB 582, 2021). oregonlegislature.gov
3. ORS 459A.863 (definitions, covered products, exclusions, small producer). oregon.public.law
4. ORS 459A.866 (producer). oregon.public.law
5. OAR 340-090-0860 (producer identification; small producers). law.cornell.edu
6. Oregon DEQ, Recycling Modernization Act exemptions. oregon.gov/deq
7. OAR 340-090-0840 (covered product exemptions). law.cornell.edu
8. Circular Action Alliance, Producer resource center. circularactionalliance.org
9. Oregon DEQ, Life cycle impact evaluation. oregon.gov/deq
10. Circular Action Alliance, Oregon 2026 fee schedule (published Oct. 29, 2025). circularactionalliance.org
11. Circular Action Alliance, Oregon eco-modulation and Bonus A overview (June 2025). PDF
12. ORS 459A.869 (PRO membership, registry, non-compliance notices). oregon.public.law
13. Recycling Modernization Act Producer Status List, as of April 9, 2026. PDF
14. Resource Recycling, “Oregon DEQ flags 250 producers for RMA noncompliance,” April 21, 2026. resource-recycling.com
15. ORS 459.995 (civil penalties). oregon.public.law
16. ORS 459A.962 (DEQ enforcement). oregon.public.law
17. Oregon DEQ, “Oregon recycling law upheld as constitutional,” Aug. 28, 2026. oregon.gov
18. Holland & Knight, “Federal court upholds Oregon's EPR law in full,” August 2026. hklaw.com
19. MDM, “Oregon EPR fight moves to appeals court,” September 2026. mdm.com
20. Arnold & Porter, “A reprieve from packaging EPR enforcement in Oregon,” July 2026. arnoldporter.com
21. Oregon DEQ, Recycling Modernization Act updates 2026 rulemaking. oregon.gov/deq
22. Oregon DEQ, Modernizing Oregon's recycling system (program plan and amendments). oregon.gov/deq
23. Circular Action Alliance, Oregon searchable registry of producer members, Q3 2026. PDF

What changed

• October 2, 2026 First published.

General information, not legal advice. This guide summarizes laws, rules and program documents as we read them on the review date above. These programs change often, and how a law applies depends on your products, contracts and facts. For a formal opinion, consult counsel. Producer Desk is not a law firm.