Top:  Oregon Bill 3018 would require generators of >1,000 lbs/week of back-of-house food waste to separate and recycle the material. Photo by Nora Goldstein

Oregon House Bill 3018, introduced in the 2025 legislative session, proposes new laws to prevent and dispose of food waste. The bill requires entities that “cook, assemble, process, serve or sell” food that generate more than 1,000 pounds/week of back-of-house food waste at a single site to recover and arrange for the material to be collected and transported to a facility authorized to accept food waste for composting. It also directs the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to establish a program to educate entities on food waste separation and disposal requirements. The law would become effective beginning in 2027, with the threshold dropping to 500 lbs/week in 2028.  HB 3018 also modifies food date labeling laws to require foods packaged with a date label to use uniform terms, and prohibit labels with the phrase “sell by.” Allowed terms include “BEST if Used by” or “BEST if Used or Frozen by” to indicate the quality date of the food and “USE by” or “USE by or Freeze by” to indicate the safety date of the food. It also creates “BB” to indicate the quality date of the food and “UB” to indicate the safety date of the food if the food package is too small to include the uniform term.