Oregon Collected $167.9 Million to Fund Recycling. It Spent $56.5 Million.

On July 1, 2025, Oregon became the first state where a packaging producer-responsibility law actually took money in.▸ Under the Recycling Modernization Act, companies that sell packaged goods into Oregon now pay dues to a state-approved nonprofit, Circular Action Alliance (CAA) Oregon, which is supposed to spend that money expanding and improving the state's recycling system. CAA's first annual report, covering the program's first six months, lays out exactly how much came in and how much went out — and the two numbers are not close.

CAA Oregon collected $167.9 million in producer fees over the report's six-month window.▸ It spent $56.5 million — about a third of revenue — and closed the period with $111.4 million in reserves, which CAA reports splits into $60.2 million in operating reserves and $51.2 million earmarked for specific future obligations. The largest actual outlay, $19.1 million, went to eight material recovery facilities (MRFs) as processor commodity risk fees — payments meant to help those facilities weather swings in the price recyclables sell for. Another $13.0 million covered start-up costs, including $9.7 million incurred in 2022–2024 before the program even launched.

CAA's own explanation for the gap is timing, not retreat: the report calls 2025 a "build year" and says planned investments — new depot sites, collection-service expansions, materials-management infrastructure — are shifting into 2026 and 2027 as contracts and procurement catch up to the money that's already been collected.▸ Nothing in the report suggests the $111.4 million is missing or misused; it's sitting in CAA's accounts, committed to obligations that haven't been billed yet.

That explanation holds up unevenly across categories.▸ Against CAA's own program-plan budget, some lines came close to fully spent; others barely started. Local government collection-services expansion — funding meant to help cities and counties add curbside routes or drop-off sites — spent just $233,077 of a planned $12.1 million, 98% unspent. PRO materials management, budgeted at $20.7 million, spent $2.7 million. At the other end, the MRF processor-risk-fee payments and the flat $4.0 million regulatory-compliance line landed on or close to budget.

The RMA's stated purpose is to fund the people and facilities that actually collect and process Oregon's recyclables — not to build a reserve fund.▸ Federal labor data puts a number on that workforce: as of 2025, 496 establishments in Oregon's waste management and remediation industry (NAICS 562) — mostly private haulers and processors, plus local-government crews — employed 7,283 people, drawing a combined $536.5 million a year in wages, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The $111.4 million CAA is holding in reserve is equivalent to roughly a fifth of that entire sector's annual payroll statewide.

CAA says the pace picks up from here: since January 2026 it has funded nearly 20,000 additional recycling carts and three more trucks in three Oregon communities, and it opened 10 more RecycleOn drop-off centers, bringing the total to 30 by June 2026, on the way to a planned 144 by the end of 2027.

Figures cover CAA Oregon's first reporting period (Jul. 1-Dec. 31, 2025) only; CAA describes 2025 as a deliberate "build year" with spending timelines shifting into 2026-2027. The $536.5 million wage figure is Oregon's entire NAICS 562 industry payroll, not money the RMA program itself pays out — it is offered here only as a scale comparison for the $111.4 million reserve.