Credit: Department of Environmental Quality

As curbside recycling (and soon, composting) projects grow across the state, Oregon receives confirmation that its on the right path when it comes to trash. According to a Department of Environmental Quality waste recovery and generation report, Oregonians diverted 46.3 percent of waste from landfills in 2010 — the state’s highest rate since the report’s 1992 initiation. However, the total waste generated by the state — 4.69 million tons — is slightly higher than 2009’s rankings. The report also estimated that recycling and recovery saved Oregon the energy equivalent of 258 million gallons of gasoline over the past year. Woo!

Now for a classy pie chart to further illustrate the point.

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  • Department of Environmental Quality

And Portland tips the scale. The Portland metro area alone had a 51 percent recovery rate (tied with Lane County) which will undoubtedly rise after the upcoming curbside composting plan is underway. At the other end of the rankings: Wheeler County came in with the lowest recovery rate at 8 percent (but hey, at least they have a recycling page).

Alex Zielinski is a former News Editor for the Portland Mercury. She's here to tell stories about economic inequities, cops, civil rights, and weird city politics that you should probably be paying attention...

7 replies on “Oregon Knows Its Garbage”

  2. “…confirmation that its on the right path…” *it’s*

    Also, pretty unfair toward Wheeler County. They generate 52 pounds of waste per capita, compared to 1,353 in the Metro area. The total pounds per capita in the entire state is 1,131.

    Wheeler County may not be recovering their waste at as high a rate as the metro area, but they are generating 3.8% as much of it.

  6. The figures Strunk & White cites are actually only the recovered pounds per person. So, recycling is way down for Wheeler County. One needs to look at the disposal per capita figures plus the total generation per captia amounts to see the whole picture. Wheeler county generates far less than Metro, but they don’t recovery nearly as much per person.

  7. According to the detailed report, Wheeler County actually generates 646 pounds per person. The figures cited by Strunk & White are the recovered pounds per capita. So, Wheeler County does generate less person, but recycles far less than the Metro area.

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