In the latest episode in a long-fought battle over where the Portland metro area’s commercial and residential food scraps go, a compromise has been reached — though the fight may not be over.
Features from the April 2017 print edition:
- Assessing the ROI of EPR
- Community Spotlight: Asking residents to sort? One city’s done it for decades
- Data Corner: What’s still heading to landfill
- MRF of the Month: EBI Environnement
- Size reduction done right
- The fundamentals of survival – and growth
- Zeroing in
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The Spanish word perdido translates to “lost,” so it’s fitting an advanced materials recovery facility has been built adjacent to Florida’s Perdido Landfill. The MRF is working to help the local community hold onto valuable commodities.
When Chad Hurley helped found YouTube in 2005, he likely had no idea the video-sharing website would later help his hometown tell the world about its new materials recovery facility.
If one’s man’s trash is another man’s treasure, then Athens Services’ MRF is the other man.


Many municipalities struggle to find downstream uses for recovered glass, but one study offers a bit of hope for a modest new end market.