Event

Where Does Garbage Go?

Although plenty of Portlanders are proud of how "green" their city is, not many know what happens to their waste. This bus tour will provide an insider's perspective to trash, recycling and waste reduction in the Rose City.

The tour will depart from METRO Executive offices at 600 NE Grand #207, where we will meet with Will Elder, Business Waste Reduction Planner. Elder will give us an overview of the day's tour sites and explain Metro's initiatives for waste prevention, recycling and composting.

We will then board the bus to visit the METRO Transfer station where Recology manages a recycling and recovery operation. James Waterman
Operations Supervisor for Recology Oregon who will guide us through their the facility where crews separate dry waste into recyclable materials, including mixed waste paper, metals, plastics and more.

We'll then visit the Nature's Needs composting facility for a tour of how our food scraps becomes compost. This is a first hand perspective of what the other end of our curbside composting program looks like.

The day will end at two local businesses founded on creative reuse. Rosie McGown, Communications Coordinator for The ReBuilding Center of Our United Villages, will give us a brief tour of their center and their recovery and reuse initiatives, while Keri Piehl, Education Coordinator for School & Community Reuse Action Project (SCRAP), will show us their operations and talk about SCRAP's environmental awareness and art education programs.