Sanipac

Lane County’s efforts to build a food waste diversion facility south of Eugene were rejected for a second time Wednesday. The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a previous zoning denial from the state’s land use board.

Lane County says it has lost more than $5 million in fees from waste hauler Sanipac exporting waste to its parent company’s southern Oregon landfill. That’s left the county short on the funds it needs to operate its 15 transfer stations.

The garbage hauler that handles Springfield’s trash, Sanipac, has not paid millions of dollars in fees it owes to Lane County, according to the county.

Since 2018, when China stopped accepting recycling from the U.S., domestic programs have begun to fill the gap.

A lawsuit filed this week in Lane County Circuit Court claims a Sanipac driver was negligent when he ran over a homeless woman who was sleeping in a parking lot near First Christian Church in Eugene in August 2019.