Lane County, OR Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

LC 9.015.005 (Urban Growth Area Recycling Regulations) targets haulers and processors, not households: any person or company collecting or processing refuse and recycling for a fee within the unincorporated area between a city's limits and its urban growth boundary (UGB) must, for a city of 4,000 or more residents, provide the same 'program elements' the city itself has adopted, submit an annual compliance plan to the county's Waste Management Division by November 1, give the county 30 days' notice of new customer education materials, and file an annual 'Opportunity to Recycle' report to DEQ. Haulers must collect every material on the state's Uniform Statewide Collection List, deliver it to a permitted processing facility, and, for containers purchased after January 1, 2026, use bins with at least 10 percent post-consumer recycled content. Multifamily properties of five units or more must be offered recycling collection service matching whatever standard the nearby city requires.

For UGBs around Lane County's largest cities, those with 50,000 or more residents (in practice, Eugene and Springfield), LC 9.015.005B adds three more duties: give the county a copy of the residential rate schedule on request, sort or route to a material recovery facility any construction and demolition load over six cubic yards, and provide multifamily recycling collection to every five-plus-unit property.

A hauler or processor that fails to meet any of these program requirements commits what LC 9.015.005C calls a 'Class 1 failure to comply,' a distinct enforcement category from the Class A/B/C violations used elsewhere in the solid waste chapter.