The current West Coast port labor dispute is undoubtedly affecting many small and medium-sized businesses across the state of Oregon, adding costs and delaying shipment of exports. The coastwide conflict has also proved to be problematic for the local recycling industry. Many companies, based in Oregon, facilitate recycling by collecting materials and sending them over to Asia for reprocessing. With backups at ports, many of these businesses are finding themselves with excess volumes of these commodities on hand.
The problem has grown severe enough that the Association of Oregon Recyclers sent a letter to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to intervene on their behalf. The industry association claims that the much of the backlogged material may end up destined for Oregon’s landfills.