Why I've Given Up on Portland's Curbside Recycling Program

For the past year I've lived in Portland where trash and recycling is collected curbside by the city. I've tried to do the right thing by recycling, but now I'm done.

Every week the trash is collected and every week I look for anything that can be recycled to put in the blue bin and picked up by the city. Every week, something is left behind. I assume it's been rejected for pick up since some things are usually taken, just not all of it.

This past week I only had two things in the bin. The packaging for the Lego Dimensions figures my son got for his birthday and the Amazon box it was delivered in. Both were not taken.

What gives? I searched online for the third and what I said would be the last time, to find out what is and isn't accepted for curbside recycling. After poking around for 20 minutes I found it. This is directly from the City of Portland's website:

Accepted for Recycling

Paper: Newspapers, magazines, books (hardcover and soft cover), phone books, old mail, greeting cards, flyers, brochures, envelopes (with or without windows), manila folders, postcards, and paper bags. More or less, you can recycle anything that previously came from a tree.

Paperboard: Clean food boxes with liners removed (cereal, rice, cake mixes, etc.), paper towel tubes, writing pad backs, medicine, and toiletry boxes

Corrugated Cardboard

Glass, Cans & Aluminum: Metal food and beverage containers, aluminum foil, aerosol cans with the lids removed, clear and colored glass bottles and jars. No Pyrex dishes please.

Plastic: All plastics with the recycling symbol (example:

) can be placed in your bin. Styrofoam containers cannot be recycled, period.

Not Accepted for Recycling

Motor oil
Pesticide bottles or other hazardous wastes
Heavily soiled paper or cardboard
Medical wastes such as syringes
Styrofoam

That Amazon box is definitely corrugated and it wasn't heavily soiled. The Lego box is also made of paper. I fact it's pretty much identical to the paperboard you'd find in cereal boxes which are accepted. The rules say "More or less, you can recycle anything that previously came from a tree." I guess it's less in this case.

Now I have these two pieces of cardboard left in the rain soaking wet that I have to drag back into the house. For the record, they had dried by the time I took these photos but they aren't quite what they used to be.

After a year of trying this and constantly being rejected, I quit. It all goes in the Portland purple trash bag that is guarded at the grocery store the same way the cigarettes are. Weird.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I'd love to know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter.

Filed Under: Recycling