PORTLAND -- Portland's new curbside recycling program begins on October 31st and the new recycling buckets started showing up on residents' doorsteps Monday.
The buckets are for food scraps and designed to sit right on your kitchen counter. From there, users will dump the bucket-loads into a yard waste bin which will be picked up every week by the garbage collectors.
The food scraps, mixed with yard debris will then go to commercial composting facilities for processing. Regular garbage collection will switch to every other week.
Link: City of Portland guide to recycling
As the buckets began appearing Monday, some residents told KGW they were concerned the change may force them to pay for a larger bin. But Portland's solid waste manager has said that would be unlikely, based on what they found in the pilot program.
"93 percent of the customers [in the pilot program] didn't need a bigger bin," manager Don Bolton said.
Other residents, including Mustafa Rostoum, said they don't think curbside composting will be a big deal. He remembers when recycling first started.
"It takes time to learn how to help the enviroment," he said. It took me a while. Same as recycling it just took me a while," Rostoum said.
The city will be following up with flyers in the maiil which should help answer any questions of concerned residents.
