A Visit to the Recycling Battlefield
Jim Newcomer, LOSN Waste Reduction Team, May 4, 2026
When you drop a plastic bottle in your mixed recycling roll cart and drag it out to the street for curbside pickup, does it really get recycled? Or does the hauler just send it to a landfill or ship it off to Asia, where it becomes someone else’s burden? How much of that stuff is actually channeled back into our economy as new products or packaging?
Recently a group of Lake Oswego citizens, organized by LOSN, set out to find the real answer – right here in Clackamas County.
On a Wednesday evening in March, about 20 of us met at Pioneer Materials Recovery Facility (called a MRF for short) in Clackamas,Oregon. The dedicated employees process the contents of curbside co-mingled recycling bins from Portland and, in fact, from many towns in Oregon. Separating items by source material is critical to sending them to the customers for reuse/recycle.
The tour idea originated with our LOSN Waste Reduction Team; and we invited the Program Manager for Metro’s Master Recycler program, Stacy Ludington and Sara Stith, the new Sustainability Program Manager for Lake Oswego, to join us.
We carpooled from LO to the facility in Clackamas. Stacy provided the headsets used by Master Recycler trainees for us to use so that we could hear our guide in the materials processing area. Once everyone was outfitted with the headsets and other safety gear, we stepped inside the building and into a meeting room for a brief overview of the company from our tour guide, Mike Smith, the Warehouse Manager for this facility. Pioneer started as a local company operating in Tacoma and Portland. In 2024, it became a subsidiary of a national conglomerate called Waste Connections, Inc. With that merger came the capital funding to upgrade equipment to process larger quantities of material to a higher purity.
Mike explained that Pioneer receives all the mixed recycling that is picked up curbside by trash haulers in Portland and many other local jurisdictions, although not Lake Oswego. The new extended producer responsibility law that recently took effect requires all towns in Oregon to recycle the same materials, and so Pioneer processes recycled goods trucked in from as far away as Baker City and Ashland.
At the beginning of the process, the mixed materials are tipped onto an angled conveyor belt and transported upwards to mechanical fingers that separate the high value OCC cardboard first. Another conveyor on the next level is crowded with workers who stand by the fast-moving belt picking out by hand the material that cannot be recycled here, such as plastic grocery bags, and watching the main stream flow over the end and drop onto the next belt, where others, still picking by hand, begin sorting the plastics from the paper, and then on to the next stages where they use mechanical and visual sorting methods to further separate materials by composition (metal, plastic, paper).
If anything, the noise intensified. Blowers were blowing the lighter materials up, grids with holes of various sizes were letting smaller pieces or cans fall through, and magnets were picking out the steel cans and chunks to separate them from aluminum and other non-ferrous metals. At one point a single one-armed robot was identifying and snatching small pieces that the operators had missed on the fast-moving conveyor belt.
Once the individual materials are separated (paper, cardboard, tin cans, plastic milk jugs, colored detergent bottles, etc.), they further refine the separated materials to remove the small pieces of foreign material that would contaminate a shipment. Finally, the separated materials are baled into six-foot cubes that weigh up to a ton apiece, and these are shipped to paper mills, steel plants, and plastic recycling facilities all over the country.
Pioneer prides itself in achieving a high degree of purity of the material for one main reason: the price they can command for it depends on the purity of their product. The accuracy of sorting is the heart of the operation. High purity equals higher prices; low purity, low prices. The market is a relentless disciplinarian, and Pioneer claims that their product maintains the highest purity in the business.
After touring the process up close, climbing up steel ladders, walking across catwalks, listening to explanations from our tour guide as we stood high up on platforms, and finally emerging on the plant floor, we went outside and gazed up at the bales of cardboard, plastics, steel cans, aluminum cans, and paper, all ready to ship out. With the background noise now at a minimum, our tour guide, Mike Smith, the Warehouse Manager offered us an impromptu Q & A session.
A few key learnings:
- Do you pay the trash haulers for the material they bring you? Answer: No
- How much of your end products do you ship overseas Answer: None – By Law!
- Are you able to sell all your products to recycling plants (Answer: Yes.)
The good news is that every scrap of the recyclable materials (those allowed in our curbside co-mingled recycling bins) is recycled; nothing is landfilled except the contaminants they pick out of the stream, roughly 5% of their intake. Tour participant Sara Hammons commented about the tour “I found it interesting that the materials get run through the facility multiple times if needed until they get to their proper place or are confirmed garbage.”
Surprisingly (for us, at least) the company pays their employees well, provides health care, paid vacations, time off, and other benefits, such as support for higher education of both employees and their family members. As a result, there is low employee turnover. We were impressed by the enthusiasm for their work that we experienced from everyone we met at Pioneer.
As Oregon’s new recycling law, the Extended Producers Responsibility Act, takes effect, funding will be provided to Pioneer and other MRF’s to use to enhance their existing equipment, including robots and AI technology. They will automate some of their picking lines even further, and they will increase their capacity to handle even greater incoming loads.
So in answer to our original question: Does your curbside recycling really get recycled?
You bet it does. Pioneer is banking on it.
There is a lot to celebrate with respect to sustainability in the City of Lake Oswego. The accomplishments stretch across all aspects of city operations: transportation, energy efficiency, natural resource protection, and waste reduction.
Major Accomplishments
Promote Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy
Protect Natural Resources
Reduce Waste
Amanda Watson started in September as the City of Lake Oswego’s Sustainability Program Manager. In her role, she is responsible for implementing the City’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, in collaboration with other City departments and community partners. She also manages the City’s solid waste and recycling franchise with Republic Services, and serves as staff liaison to the Sustainability Advisory Board. Amanda previously worked at the City of Portland, where she served as lead on climate and sustainability policy for Mayor Wheeler. She helped to develop Portland’s Climate Emergency Declaration, which aligned the City’s emissions reduction goals with the Paris Agreement and committed to a climate justice-based approach to climate action. She also worked at the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability on a project to increase equity in the waste collection system. Amanda has a Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
The 2021 Lake Oswego Tree Summit, Sustaining Our Urban Forest: Resilience, Responsibility and Reciprocity in a Changing Climate, was a huge success. Dr Christine Buhl, Oregon Department of Forestry Entomologist, shared pertinent and very interesting information about the effect of a changing climate on our urban forest and answered questions from the audience. Dr. Buhl’s talk was followed by a presentation by the City of Lake Oswego on the LO Tree canopy based on analysis of recent LiDAR data.
When: Wednesday, November 17, 2001
You can find displays and aisles of residential electric landscaping equipment at your local Ace Hardware, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. This equipment works great and is often less expensive to purchase and operate. The electric equipment is quieter and does not have the toxic emissions of the gas powered equipment.
Dan Fidler and Lonny Chavez started Oswego Yard Care in 2019 with the desire to create a landscaping business using quiet renewable energy. They use all-electric battery powered Ego brand tools that greatly reduce noise pollution and have no gas fumes. Every kwh of energy they use to recharge their equipment is offset with the purchase of clean renewable energy. They have enthusiasm for innovation and insistence on clean energy. Oswego Yard Care maintains and creates beautiful yards by combining seasonal color, native plants and perennials. Dan and Lonny encourage other landscapers to check out their equipment to experience for themselves how great this electric equipment works. Visit 
Today’s electric mowers are very light and have a long runtime with a powerful Lithium battery. It is so quiet and easy to push and can do the entire lot with no problem. There are a number of new Lithium battery powered mowers available. We use a Ryobi 20 inch 40 Volt cordless mower which comes battery charger included ($299 at Home Depot).
In 2015 we decided to go all electric/battery for our landscaping equipment. We purchased a Black and Decker hedge trimmer and a Kobalt lawn mower at Lowe’s for a reasonable price. This equipment performs great and after 6 years they have held up well. We also like to use a rake and broom.
Speaker: Dan Mabe, CEO, Founder and CEO of 
Speaker: Burke Hales, Professor OSU, College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences