A Visit to the Recycling Battlefield

May 13, 2026 | Recent, Uncategorized, Waste Reduction

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).

Photo of recyclables on a conveyor belt to be sorted.

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.

From One Earth Day Activity to a Growing District-Wide Sustainability Movement

May 13, 2026 | Recent, Schools, Waste Reduction

By Jirapa Wongwanich, LOSN Schools & Waste Reduction Action Teams

What began as a simple trash bin observation has grown into a collaborative sustainability effort connecting students, teachers, families, staff and community organizations across multiple schools in the Lake Oswego School District.

In March 2025, while volunteering at Palisades World Language School, I noticed how much food waste was ending up in trash bins each day. Like many families in our community, I had started separating food waste at home after learning about the city’s curbside composting program. The question naturally emerged: could students separate their lunch food scraps too?

That same evening, I attended a sustainability gathering co-hosted by Lake Oswego Sustainability Network and Lake Oswego School District, where a county representative shared how Clackamas County supports schools in managing their waste. Inspired by the presentation, I reached out to the Palisades Green Team leaders to explore whether lunch waste separation might be possible at our school.

We decided to begin with a simple Earth Day activity involving a limited number of classes. We created a short presentation to teach students about food waste, composting and a simple sorting process designed to minimize confusion and contamination:

  • Only food goes into the compost bin,
  • Leftover milk goes into the liquid bin,
  • Unopened or uneaten food goes into the food-share bin.

Clackamas County provided bins and helped conduct a food waste audit, while teachers and volunteers guided students through the process. The kitchen staff also provided recommendations and support with cleanup and logistics. The response from students, teachers and staff was immediate and encouraging.

Photo of a composting container filled with leftover food.

Soon after, I joined the Lake Oswego Sustainability Network Schools Action Team, where I met people who shared the same passion for sustainability and environmental education. That sense of community empowered and inspired us to do more for younger generations. LOSN created space for ideas, partnerships, and encouragement, showing how community collaboration can turn small ideas into meaningful change.

Earlier this year, the Lake Oswego High School Green Team invited the LOSN Schools Action Team to discuss lunch composting efforts at the high school campus. Seeing students genuinely passionate about food waste reduction and environmental responsibility energized both groups and inspired a broader vision: expanding lunch waste separation programs throughout the district.

As planning continued, support grew across the district, including collaboration with LOSD Nutrition Services, Facility Operations and Communications teams. Elementary schools began exploring how programs could work within their own campuses and routines.

Three schools, River Grove Elementary School, Lake Grove Elementary School and Palisades World Language School successfully expanded or launched school-wide lunch waste separation programs with support from Lake Oswego Sustainability Network.

Each school approached the work differently based on its own strengths and logistical challenges. Schools without cafeterias, such as Palisades and Lake Grove, needed creative solutions for setting up sorting stations in hallways and transporting collected waste outdoors. River Grove, the school with a cafeteria, had to manage a larger student population and faced higher risks of contamination. Lake Grove already had passionate teachers leading advanced food waste separation efforts with younger grades. River Grove benefited from an enthusiastic 5th grade leadership team and a supportive lead teacher, while Palisades relied on strong collaboration among teachers, staff and parent volunteers.

LOSN played a key role in connecting schools, volunteers, students and community partners by facilitating communication, sharing knowledge and helping turn ideas into action. Clackamas County continued supporting the schools by providing rolling bins, supplies and food waste audits. Teachers organized student helpers, school cooks and building engineers helped manage daily setup and supported logistics, and parent volunteers assisted with training and supervision. Members of the Lake Oswego High School Green Team visited elementary schools to guide younger students through the sorting process, creating meaningful peer-to-peer learning experiences. Many 5th grade students eagerly stepped into leadership roles, helping younger students sort waste correctly and building excitement around sustainability.

Across all three schools, one key factor stood out: collaboration. The success of these programs was not the result of one person or one group, but of an entire community working together: students, teachers, custodians, nutrition staff, administrators, volunteers, county partners and LOSN𐆑all contributing in different ways.

This growing effort is a reminder that meaningful change often begins with small, local actions and that students are ready and eager to make a positive impact on the environment. When schools, families and communities come together around a shared purpose, even a simple lunch routine can become an opportunity to teach leadership, environmental stewardship and collective responsibility for the future.

We hope this program will continue to grow, become institutionalized within the district and expand to more schools in the coming years. With continued collaboration among students, staff, families, community partners and district leadership, this effort has the potential to become a lasting part of school culture and sustainability education across the district.