AS REPORTED IN PART 1 of this series, around the state of Oregon, everyone can now expect to soon have access to curbside recycling on a local depot for recycling the same set of materials. This is part of the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act (RMA), or Senate Bill 582, that passed the Oregon legislature in 2021.
In Part 2, we’ll start to focus on what the new RMA means for Oregon Coast residents or businesses and to keep the materials in circulation – by participating in networks that either physically or chemically recycle, reuse, trade, donate, repair, hoard to creatively label materials we no longer want in our households – instead of putting them in the garbage can and having them hauled a few hundred miles to a big hole in the ground at our expense.
As even pieces of plastic, metal cans, and other materials go to the waste bins in Astoria, when not accepted by our local recycling, we should start to question the whole idea of how we do recycling, which puts all the responsibility for the new and expensive, while making us pay for it. We have already paid for much of what we recycle (it is mostly packaging), and then we pay again for it, whether it is part of our garbage bill or when we bring it to an independent recycler. The RMA does modernize our recycling system and at the attempt to reduce plastic pollution, but it is not complete, it still works within the industrial economic system that seeks profits from all activities, and assigns value to materials on the basis of “market forces,” which derive from this drive to monetize everything. Augmenting this approach with local sharing and gifting economies, and robust community-based trading and repair activities, we can approach the optimization that nature has with its cycling of materials.
We’ll explore more of the community networking approach in future parts of this series. In this part, we’ll start out with the base of the materials cycling pyramid – government-sponsored recycling of materials from individual households and businesses.
The list of materials that are now accepted in your Recology single-mingled recycling bins is listed at the Astoria Transfer Station off of Williamsport Road and be accessed by going to www.oregon.gov/deq/recycling/Documents/AcceptedList.pdf, This has been updated on August 4, but a rodnot may change in the future. The big additions are milk cartons and TetraPak containers, and plastic pots and nursery packs (as mentioned in Part 1). The RMA also requires that producers of packaging, ewrecware and paper fund improvements to the recycling system in Oregon, and put EPA state systems for recycling materials that are not on the list above but are recyclable- not on this Part 3. This list is accessible by going to www.oregon.gov/deq/recycling/Documents/AcceptedList.pdf, and like the change list above, was updated on August 4. If you have materials that are not on this list, you can either use them until the so-called PRO (producer responsibility organization) collection centers are set up in our area, or refer to the options below to recycle most of that right now, either free or a small fee.
Recology also collects textiles of all kinds including blankets and linens, and scrap metal in the covered recycling yard at the Astoria Transfer station off of Williamsport Road. Just bring the items, check it in at the booth, and they will direct you to the proper area and help with dropping the items off the site. You can also bring any items that can go into the commercial recycling bins in the transfer station and drop them off, and there are also areas outside for recycling glass and separate cardboard. For those that currently don’t have curbside service, this is a great option.
If you look at the recycling guide put out by Recology (see https://www.recology.com/recology-western-oregon/guides/), you’ll see that many items that may seem too few to be easily recycled are not curbside because there are no ways to return used upholstered household substances that can’t be recycled, reused, upcycled, traded or made into art, at least somewhere. Listed here are some local and regional resources for your items that are used as trash in your recycling guides.
Buy Nothing - There are two Facebook groups in the Astoria area for this global bartering group. The “Buy Nothing Astoria (NEW) Knappa, OR & Surrounding Areas” has 893 members, but is closed to new members. If you’re a member, you can post and comment, and if you can still visit the site to see what’s being gifted at facebook.com/groups/2317456525431816. The “Buy Nothing Astoria, OR” group is open to new members and also focuses on downsizing and better gift-giving if you haven’t already. You can also download the Buy Nothing Project’s phone app at buynothingproject.com and start bartering today from wherever you’re buying!
Gooniewille Buy & Sell - This Facebook group has been around a while and has almost 34,000 members holding Knappa & Seaside “want” ads in post cards for sale or for free and pretty much anything. (Again just post and look for a house, bunnies, play equipment, barter, free mixing, books, and more posted a few minutes ago). If you’re looking at other things around Seaside/Knappa for “Gooniewille Buy & Sell - Astoria Oregon and surrounding areas” or go to facebook.com/
Freecycle – The original “tagging” bartering gifting and getting group, Freecycle (freecycle.org) started small in Tucson in 2003, and is now in more than 100 countries, with more than 11 million members and over 5,000 local towns participating. They even have a new friend group option where you can gift and receive for new hauls and group of friends. It has become less popular over time, but is still a good option if worldwide to be associated with. When you log in, you can only post, and posts will only come in from that community.
Nextdoor – This is a localized social networking app where you can exchange neighborhood needs, events, alerts and even recommendations and rants. If your neighborhood is mostly served by other online items to your neighbors Nextdoor mostly yields used, while over 70 million active households across 305,000 neighborhoods, primarily in US. It allows reliable app info only for your neighborhood store, or can download shared info on your favorite app zone. There is a Facebook site location, and Nextdoor has Groups (like Facebook has) that you can join out here.
In Community Alliance Thrift Store – This is the main thrift shop in Astoria, located at 268 7th Street across from the post office. Give them a call at 503-325-3371 for hours and what they take and what they have.
Buy & Reuse Thrift Shop – this shop is in Seaside, located at 601 Broadway in a strip of shops by the river. Give them a call at 503-738-7040. Proceeds go to this shop and their arts and eddy class at the Clatsop County Animal Shelter.
There are many other thrift shops in the area, including Goodwill and there are also plenty of donation organizations that will take your donations of clothes, household items, and more, including schools, churches, and non-profits. Please consider donating your useable items, bottles and cans to these organizations as well.
Even with all the options available locally, there are some items that can’t be recycled here on the coast, but certainly can in the Portland area. Astoria has a long history of people taking items from friends and neighbors to the Portland area for recycling, and even with the implementation of the RMA there will be items that are accepted in the Portland area that won’t be accepted here or at least not for a while. Here are some Portland-area options that you could look into.
Green Century Recycling (greencenturyrecycling.net) - This recycling company in the NW Portland industrial district is the only company in the area that recycles styrofoam and other expanded polystyrene products. They also recycle almost any kind of hard plastic (no colored #1, #3, and #7), as long as you separate it out by type. Their main business is on the industrial scale and it fills a need for recycling in Oregon in the absence of virtually all kinds of electronic, chemical, or toxics recycling. Green Century arranges for hauls of items they accept. Green Century arranges for hauls of items like grey shipping cartons. Their services vary and it’s worth checking their site, you can drop off many of your items in the most convenient location for you.
New Seasons - This Portland-area upscale supermarket chain has partnered with Portland recycler D6 to accept #1 (PET) clamshell food containers (clean only) for selected stores in the area. The Messenger messaging group already set up in Astoria for networking to get your clamshells to New Seasons.
This ideal of networking to get recyclable items to the Portland area will be expanded to include all sorts of items in the near future, until the RMA fully kicks in, or recyclers in the Portland area find it profitable to put drop boxes in the Astoria area. Look for future issues of this series for more networking info on networking.
Eco World (ecoworldrecycling.com) - If you have jackets, towels, blankets, sheets, clothes, shoes, belts, hats, purses or backpacks that have seen their better days and can’t be repaired, take on to thrift store, given away locally, or otherwise used up in your household, there is an option to keep these out of landfills. There are two Eco World collection bins in downtown Astoria, and they are emptied regularly. Just put your items in a closed plastic bag and put them into the collection bin. Eco World partners with local nonprofits to keep gently used items local. Undonatable clothes that are not reusable are recycled and kept out of our local landfills.
Heart of Cartm (heartofcartm.org) – If you live in the southern coastal part of Clatsop County, or the northern coastal part of Tillamook County, your local repair café is in Wheeler at the Heart of Cartm. For the remainder of 2025, the events are on 9/13, 10/11, 11/13 and 12/13 at the Heartworks Studio next to the Heart of Cartm Creative Reuse Store (another great resource for recycling by donation) and have a fantastic fundraiser/ end celebration annually at 395 Hwy 101. The store is open Thursday-Monday from 12-6 pm.
Repair Astoria (facebook.com/RepairAstoria/) – Astoria’s repair café started up in 2017, but abandoned during the pandemic. They finally gained enough momentum this summer! They meet at various locations in Astoria, typically on the second Wednesday of the month from 5:30-7:30 pm. They recommend you bring only one item each month to fix, but will try to fix more if they have the resources.
Ridwell (ridwell.com) – This Seattle-based company has officially, as of August 2025, begun one of their Ridwell Express programs here in Astoria, where you can currently recycle egg shell film and thin sheets of egg shell food packaging, dry bag the past food, coffee snack food, and prepackaged meals comes in, by mailing in pre-postmarked bags when they’re full. They will send you additional bags if you start at ridwell.com/express#well.com/get-started to order your starter kit. Ridwell has developed a great app called Sortwell that is available when you get your starter kit. You can take a photo of what you want to recycle, and it tells you which bag (or none) the material can be put into. This would be really useful for other recycling efforts! There are two other Expines bags that collect clean film and the detergent film - also a prescription pill bottles and plastic bottle caps and lids. Hopefully, these will happen in the future. (If you want to recycle beyond these in meantime, you can join a local network and have someone go to Green Century Recycling in Portland, or go yourself.)
Plastic Film Recycling Program, Flexible Film Recycling Alliance, Residential Industry Association (plasticfilmrecycling.org/airbags_discovery/) – This program accepts the same #4 rated film at the mixed plastic film drop-off in Safeway and Fred Meyer at steady 2 locations in Portland. For your plastic film (dry, clean, no paper) and put it into a plastic grocery bag and deposit it at your local Safeway here on the coast, in the bin out front.
There are of course many other options for extending the life of the materials we use everyday. Oregon’s RMA and associated regulations are trailblazing for the US, but these types of programs are already mainstream in Europe and Asia.
In future parts of this series, we will zero in on some of the details of the RMA and how it proposes to fund a transition to a circular economy, and what that will actually mean for plastics, in Oregon, and beyond that will pay out for the planet in one short reach. With Oregon’s pioneering recycling laws in the 1980s, the new RMA sets the stage for the next phase.
The RMA goes a long way in bringing Oregon into the forefront technologically and logistically, and is a good starting point for both regional social media or solid waste handling systems. We’ll continue to bring you the solutions we need. Have fun recycling, repairing, trading, and creating!