Oregon Revamps Electronics Law

Oregon’s House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would significantly change the state’s electronics collection and processing law. On March 22, House Bill 3220 passed with 56 votes in favor and four excused and not voting. 

Oregon’s E-Cycles 14-year-old program covers computers, TVs, monitors, printers, keyboards, and mice. HB 3220 will add fax machines, VCRs, portable digital music players, DVD players and recorders, video game consoles, digital converter boxes, cable and satellite receivers, scanners, small-scale servers, routers, and modems. 

Additionally, the bill eliminates the existing state contractor program, which carries out the collection and recycling responsibilities on behalf of many OEMs but allows for multiple producer responsibility organizations (PROs). 

Among the many changes, HB 3220 will also change the location of collection site requirements to ensure that 95 percent of residents are within 15 miles of a collection site and that each city provides a minimum number of sites according to its population. 

According to HB 3220, PROs must now sign contracts with any permitted transfer station, landfill, or materials recovery facility (MRF) that wants to become an Oregon E-Cycles site. 

HB 3220 is now in a Senate committee, and many of its changes will go into effect in January 2026. 

Electronics collection sites help provide consumers with a way to properly dispose of retired electronics rather than throwing them out with municipal waste. This helps prevent electronics from ending up in landfills, which can pollute the environment and cause chemical fires. 

Proper e-waste disposition is becoming more critical in this digital era. HOBI International, Inc. is an R2v3, RIOS, WBE, and ISO-14001 certified IT asset management and disposition enterprise with more than 30 years of industry experience. HOBI partners with companies around the world to help ensure their retired IT assets are disposed of properly via electronics recycling. 

For more information about our ITAD services, call 817-814-2620 or contact HOBI at sales@hobi.com.