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It’s a safe bet there’s something in your house that needs to be thrown out. Is it that old mattress shoved in the crawl space? A microwave that hasn’t worked in three years? Stacks of clamshell plastic containers that once held strawberries? The junk can quickly accumulate, but there are places other than the ever-brimming landfills to bring those things, and perhaps find them new life. As of 2018, the average American threw out 4.9 pounds of trash a day—let’s help curve that number down. Far West Recycling is ready to take your old water heaters or small electronics, while the ReBuilding Center wants your discarded light fixtures, sink handles, and any type of home goods that might find a second life in another house or apartment. Columbia Recycling PDX is ready to grab your cardboard, for free, while the monthly service Ridwell will collect those hard-to-recycle items (picture batteries and plastic bags) from your very own doorstep. Think of these recommendations as a green light to get moving on that spring cleaning. ROBIN BACIOR.
Community Warehouse
3961 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-235-8786, communitywarehouse.org. 10 am–5 pm Tuesday–Saturday.
Before donating your gently used furniture to a big-box thrift store or the noble sidewalk, consider Community Warehouse, a Portland-area furniture bank that serves more than 7,500 individuals per year. Similar to a food bank, Community Warehouse works with social service agencies to get donated home goods into the hands and homes of low-income individuals and families.
Originally started in the ’90s as the Portland Community Warehouse to provide collected home furnishings to Jewish refugee families from the Soviet Union, Community Warehouse has expanded to three furniture banks in Portland, Gresham and Tigard, as well as an estate store in Northwest Portland.
While Community Warehouse takes in a variety of home goods, some of the warehouse’s most needed items are also some of the most common: towels and linen, mattresses and box springs, dishes and silverware, pillows, and common kitchen appliances. GABRIEL GRANILLO.
Wood Waste Management
7315 NE 47th Ave., 503-493-3370, woodwastemanagement.com. 7 am–5 pm Monday–Saturday.
How many times have you seen this? It’s mid-January, just a few weeks after the holidays, and on the street corner, there’s an undecorated, despondent-looking Douglas fir. Rather than dumping holiday trees on the street, call up Wood Waste Management, which will happily take them. (Just be sure to remove all those decorations your kids made when they were 5.)
Serving more than 50,000 customers a year, Wood Waste Management helps manage yards in the Portland-area with disposal and recycling services, starting at $35 a yard for yard debris, grass and leaves. It also provides landscaping products, such as soil, bark, rocks and sand, all available for delivery. Not only does Waste Management seek to reduce its environmental impact by helping property owners recycle their yard debris sustainably, it also partners with the Boy Scouts of America and the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation. GABRIEL GRANILLO.
Metro Metals Northwest
5611 NE Columbia Blvd., 503-287-8861, metrometalsnw.com. 7:30 am–4:30 pm Monday–Friday, 7:30 am–noon Saturday.
Headquartered in Portland, Metro Metals Northwest Inc. is one of the largest buyers and sellers of ferrous and nonferrous metals in the region (to clarify, that’s metals made with and without iron). What started as a friendly rivalry between Winkler Metals and Zusman Metals in 1953 has since become a burgeoning industry committed to its customers and the environment. In addition to investing upwards of $3 million in stormwater treatment at both its Portland and Vancouver facilities, Metro Metals makes new resources out of scrap that would otherwise end up in a landfill. With locations in Portland, Vancouver, Wash., and Denver, customers can bring their scrap metal to be weighed, processed and paid out. With metal markets constantly in flux, Metro Metals recommends customers call ahead for a 24-hour quote to lock in their price. GABRIEL GRANILLO.
ReBuilding Center
3625 N Mississippi Ave., 503-331-9291, rebuildingcenter.org. 10 am–5 pm Tuesday–Sunday.
Contractors and DIY craftspeople alike have long been singing the praises of the ReBuilding Center, a nonprofit that collects new and reclaimed building materials of all shapes and sizes and resells them at a remarkable discount. The 30,000-square-foot store is a treasure trove of vintage wares, ideal for a long afternoon browse as you hunt down the perfect sconce, bracket, door knocker, or batch of flooring material. In addition, the center aims to put the skills to handle home repairs and devise creative projects in the hands of homeowners. A wealth of classes range from simple electrical repairs to basic woodworking to project-based classes that will result in you walking away with a cool item that you made all on your lonesome. Robert HAM.
Sunderland Yard
9325 SE Sunderland Ave., 503-823-3500, portland.gov/transportation/maintenance/buy-compost-and-gravel. 6:30 am–3 pm Monday–Thursday, 6:30 am–2 pm alternate Fridays.
Run by the city, the Sunderland Yard Recycling Facility should be one of your first stops in your hunt for supplies for large-scale DIY gardening and yard renovation projects. The facility turns tons of crushed stone and gravel taken from construction projects and demolished buildings into recycled rock perfect for setting a base layer for walkways and driveways or providing drainage for landscaping projects. As well, this is the spot where the massive amounts of leaves swept out of the street by Portland Bureau of Transportation crews are turned into rich compost. All of the above is available for purchase at prices considerably less than you’d find at garden shops or major stone suppliers around town. Robert HAM.
Far West Recycling
12820 NE Marx St., 503-255-2299, farwestrecycling.com.
Far West Recycling remains one of the big guns in the local recycling game. At its multiple drop-off locations, it handles all the usual suspects: plastic, glass, paper, metal and electronics, as well as other large appliances like microwave ovens, dishwashers, washers and dryers, and water heaters. What sets Far West apart is how it funnels profits back to the community, supporting causes like United Way and Young Audiences of Oregon & SW Washington, and funding the Far West Recycling Math and Science Scholarship at Lewis & Clark College’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling. ROBERT HAM.
Columbia Recycling PDX
11402 NE Marx St., 503-278-7013, columbiarecyclingpdx.com. 8:30 am–5:30 pm Monday–Friday, 8 am–4:30 pm Sunday.
Got a lot of cardboard you need to recycle? Columbia Recycling PDX is the place to take it. Why? Because you can drop it off at no charge. So long as you don’t include any plastic packing material with it, Columbia Recycling PDX will take it. Of course, that’s not the only stuff its striving to keep out of local landfills. Columbia Recycling also accepts tires, televisions, monitors and refrigerators for a small fee. Or if you have any ferrous (steel, stainless steel, cast iron) or nonferrous metals (copper, lead, zinc) you’re looking to sell, the company will gladly buy them from you. ROBERT HAM.
Environmentally Conscious Recycling
12409 NE San Rafael St., 503-253-0867, ecrrecyling.com. 7 am–7 pm Monday–Saturday, 8 am–5 pm, Sunday.
While it remains one of the leaders in recycling of dry waste and other fun items like microwave ovens and TVs (fees vary; check the website for details), Environmentally Conscious Recycling sets itself apart from the pack with its ability to break down and recycle mattresses and box springs with speed and ease. Using a locally built Bearclaw box spring extractor, ECR can take apart a mattress and box spring set, separating out all recyclable materials, in around 20 seconds. It’s a wonder to behold and a much better fate for your worn-out sleeping spot than taking up all kinds of space in a landfill. ROBERT HAM.
Green Century Recycling
2950 NW 29th Ave., 503-764-9963, greencenturyonline.net. 8 am–5 pm Monday–Friday, 11 am–3 pm Saturday.
Every tech company that produces a physical product adheres to the concept of planned obsolescence. In layman’s terms, that means your smartphone or laptop is going to die a slow death only a few years after you buy it. That’s what makes the work that Green Century Recycling does so important. The facility takes your various bits of e-waste—everything from LCD TVs to gaming consoles to circuit boards—and safely breaks them down for either recycling or reuse, including making sure any data on them is destroyed. Better still, it takes all that crap off your hands free of charge. Bonus: The company also accepts bags of plastic foam, packing peanuts, and bubble wrap for a small fee. Robert HAM.
The People’s Depot
800 SE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-713-6418, groundscoreassociation.org/thepeoplesdepot. 10 am–noon Monday–Friday.
Founded in 2020 in response to Gov. Tina Kotek’s suspension of Oregon’s decades-old Bottle Bill at select stores, The People’s Depot has continued to serve some of Portland’s most vulnerable citizens. Created by the nonprofit Ground Score Association, the beverage container redemption center notes that it’s operated by canners (individuals who collect cans and bottles for income) for canners.
The People’s Depot processes around 30,000 beverage containers a day and accepts about 400 per person. Though initially funded by the city of Portland, The People’s Depot is now fully funded through private donations as well as by the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative. GABRIEL GRANILLO.
SCRAP Creative Reuse
603 SE 6th ave., portland.scrapcreativereuse.org. 11 am–6 pm daily.
What started back in 1998 as a way for a group of public schoolteachers to reuse classroom materials has grown into SCRAP Creative Reuse, a vibrant, funky nonprofit with four locations across the U.S. that is perfect for crafters, artists and others with a DIY bent to find the supplies to bring their creations to life. The nonprofit takes in all manner of goods (right now that includes yarn, canvases, rubber bands, tape, paper, and other art supplies) that are just begging to be repurposed or rescued for a second life. And if inspiration is what you’re after, or a community of fellow artists to socialize with, the Portland location offers plenty of classes, workshops and camps for crafters of all ages. Robert HAM.
James Recycling
5541 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, 971-217-7444, jshrecycling.com. 11 am–2 pm, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The motto for this amazing nonprofit says it all: “What curbside can’t, we can.” Started by a young man with Asperger’s who has had a lifelong passion for protecting the natural world, James Recycling focuses its efforts on the kinds of material that don’t go in your blue bin: plastic straws and utensils, detergent bottles, bread bags, contact lens blister packs, and plastic foam, as well as electronics, power cords, and that string of Christmas lights that only half works. It’s a heck of a deal considering how little it charges: $3 for a grocery bag’s worth of stuff and $10 for a 45-gallon bag of plastic foam. ROBERT HAM.
Ridwell
ridwell.com/join/portland
There’s a better than average chance that you’ve seen the friendly-looking Ridwell boxes sitting on the stoops and front porches of your neighborhood. But if you’ve never thought to look up what this company is all about, let us enlighten you. Each box gets filled with those hard-to-recycle items that don’t go into your usual blue bin. We’re talking light bulbs, plastic shopping bags, batteries, plastic clamshell containers, and multilayered packaging like pet food bags, potato chip bags, and frozen food bags. And for a nominal monthly fee, Ridwell will come collect those items and recycle them on your behalf. A hell of a deal all around. Fair warning: The company doesn’t offer these services in every part of the city. Robert HAM.
Poop 911
877-POOP-911, poop911.com.
One thing people often don’t think to recycle is their dog’s poop. Since 2005, Poop 911 has been picking up and properly disposing of doggie doo-doo from yards in more than 250 locations across the United States. In addition to cleaning your yard and disposing of the pup’s piles, the company will also remove kitty caca from litter boxes, keeping their poop out of plastic bags in landfills. Having pet excrement properly disposed of from your yard helps protect the environment, especially waterways. When washed into water systems, dog poop, which contains nitrogen and phosphorus, can lead to excessive algae growth and deplete oxygen levels, impacting fish and wildlife. And if left in yards, that dog waste can also spread bacteria, even parasites. Call the number above to make an appointment, or schedule online. SASSAFRAS PATTERDALE.
This story is part of Green Living Companion, Willamette Week’s environmentally conscientious magazine. It is free and can be found all over Portland beginning Monday, April 21, 2025. Find your free copy at one of the locations noted here. If you’re usual pick-up spot is out of magazines, head to one of the solid green spots on the map, which will have 200 magazines. You can also grab a copy at our online store!
