Pride Disposal and Recycling President Kristin Leichner

https://pridedisposal.com/
what is the future of recycling? 
How is Oregon innovating with their new bill? 
what should consumers do to help get material actually recycled? 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/packaging-today-show/id1656906367

Join Us Live Daily on LinkedIn Or YouTube or listen at your leisure on Apple or Spotify 

Packaging Today Podcast 

https://open.spotify.com/show/6dksVwqEFVDWdggd27fyFF?si=e924995740f94e19

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:15

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is my friend Kristin Leichner, the president at Pride Disposal here locally. How are you, Kristen? I'm good. How are you? Good. Thank you so much for making time. I, I really appreciate it. I'm impressed with your career in this industry and I think, it will, motivate a lot of young people to, To take a chance and maybe look at this industry as an option. but I'd love to hear about your

Kristin Leichner: 0:42

background. Sure. So, my background in the industry actually goes back before I was born. I'm, born into the industry. So my, great-grandfather owned and ran a company in the Portland area, Portland Vancouver area, in the early 19 hundreds. And then, he left that business to his sons and my grandfather in one of his, Brothers ran that business together for a few years. eventually they determined they weren't, didn't have the best working relationship, so decided to go separate ways. Sure. And so, my grandfather left that. And then, my dad had been working in the business there. And so my grandfather and my dad were looking for other opportunities in the garbage industry. and a business was up for sale in the Sherwood, Oregon area. And so they bought that business in 1986. I was born shortly after that, and so I really did grow up in the business, around the business, working summers, growing up officially. I started working here in June of 2004, doing customer service, moved into kind of commercial customer service and sales, and then moved into becoming our office manager, and then in 2016 became the company president. Wow.

Cory Connors: 1:48

Good for you. It's such a cool story. And what arise to an important role in this industry. I'd love to know what are some of the roles you can do as a younger person? I used to work in my dad's warehouse when I was very young doing very menial tasks. can you tell us some of that?

Kristin Leichner: 2:04

Yeah, so I definitely started with the menial tasks. My very first job here when I was about 10 years old was shredding old paper route sheets. So we used to print out paper route sheets for all of our drivers, and my brother and I, we had a big industrial shredder. And we would come into the office in the summer and go through the old boxes of route sheets that were old enough that we could get rid of them. We would feed them through the shredder, pull the shredded paper out, put it in a recycling container, and we did that for. Several hours a day cuz there were lots of route sheets to go through. then I graduated into more fun tasks like stamping checks for deposits that would come in for payments. running the tally to add up all the payments, making sure those balanced, helping with scale tickets, things like that. So, I really truly started from the bottom and worked my way up over the years.

Cory Connors: 2:50

You think about how everything used to have to be written down and printed out and wrote on, like with pencils and pens, remember?

Kristin Leichner: 2:59

And now, yeah. we moved to our onboard computer systems and our trucks a little over 20 years ago, which was pretty early in the adoption for something like that. and every once in a while that system goes down, just like every computer system can occasionally fail. and as much as. Oh, we drug some drivers kicking and streaming into the, onboard computer system. Now we all hate it when it goes down. Everybody's like, what do you mean I have to run off of a paper route sheet?

Cory Connors: 3:25

Right. It's too funny. I remember, we, we had some email issues a few years ago at my company and, they. For one day they were down almost a whole day and my, one of the rookie sales reps came up to me and he said, what are we supposed to do? And I said, oh, just do it the old way, where we used to print out things and fax 'em over. He's like, what do you mean the old way? Like he had never even done them. Like I, I had to train him on how to do it without a computer, so. I think it's,

Kristin Leichner: 3:56

what do you mean I have to pick up the phone and call somebody?

Cory Connors: 3:59

How does this work? Yeah. I can't text them. I don't get it. Yeah. Very funny. Well, can you tell us a little bit about your company and what you guys do there?

Kristin Leichner: 4:09

Sure. So we, I actually, we actually have two companies here. So we have Pride Disposal Company, which is our, garbage and recycling hauling company. And then we have Pride Recycling Company, which is our transfer station. So, our hauling company, pride Disposal, we serve seven different jurisdictions in the Washington County area in Oregon, six cities and one unincorporated county. And in some of those service areas, we are the only service provider. And in some, there's more than one, but we each have our own geographic boundaries and franchise areas. And so we provide a collection for residential, commercial industrial customers for garbage recycling, compost services, and then glass recycling, which is done on the side in Oregon. And then our transfer station, we, take our own waste from our hauling company in. We also take material from other hauling companies other. Companies like roofing companies, construction cleanup companies, things like that. And, the dry waste that we sort in, which is typically, or that we bring in, which is typically construction debris, materials like that, we run over a conveyor belt and we sort that material and pull additional recycling out of it. And then, the material that comes off the end of that belt that cannot be recycled, we send to the landfill. And then we are a reload facility for the other materials we take in. So we reload wet waste, send it to the landfill. We reload our, mixed recycling and send it to recycling processors. And then we also reload yard debris and then also yard debris with food scraps and bring it to the, respected compost facilities. And so it's just easier. Our facilities located in Sherwood more centralized to where our collection areas are. Some of those landfills and recycling processors are not as close to us, and so it's. More efficient to bring all of our smaller route trucks to our transfer station and then send it to the proper market rather than have each individual route truck go to each individual facility.

Cory Connors: 5:54

Wow. This is quite a process that you've got here. I didn't know that. yard debris and yard debris with food waste were considered different. Can you explain that a little bit?

Kristin Leichner: 6:05

Sure. So I can't remember which is which, but I believe one is type one compost in Oregon and one is type three, but I might've got the details on that wrong. But they are classified differently. They require different permits from the Department of Environmental Quality or D E Q. and so we do keep those materials segregated. Sometimes they also have different rates. One might be, less expensive to process because the processing is different. So right now, six of our seven jurisdictions have food included in the yard debris. The seventh one does not yet, but they're hoping to add that in the fall. So eventually it will all be the same in terms of our collection area. But yeah, some of it goes to different facilities and has different processing requirements.

Cory Connors: 6:45

That's incredible. Do you have to have dedicated trucks for each type, or can you clean 'em out and you know it, it is no big deal. So

Kristin Leichner: 6:54

we do, each load is segregated. and then we do have a, truck wash at our site. So if we use the same automated trucks that we would use for our garbage cart, a recycling cart, okay. Yard, debris, cart, obviously at different times. And then if they are changing commodities especially, we wash them out in between loads. but then most loads, except for clean recycling, we wash out at the end of the day anyways. Because that material, if left in the truck, can be really corrosive as well as it's not exactly pleasant to work inside of a truck to repair it if you need to. If there is leftover yard debris or garbage left in it.

Cory Connors: 7:27

Yeah. Those smells can be pretty pungent. Sure. Yes. Yeah. I'm very excited you've agreed to let me come by and do a tour of your facilities. I can't wait to do that. thank you again for letting me do that. Yeah, no problem. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the Association for Oregon Recyclers, which is where we met originally. And you were the president of the board for many years, and, you're still on the board, but now I've taken, a regular seat or Just a standard board seat. can you talk to us about that organization and what their focus is?

Kristin Leichner: 7:57

Sure. So I have served on the board for AOR for 11 years now. I'm coming up on my 12th year. And so each board member serves two year terms and can be reelected. I served as chair for one two year term. So previous to that I was the secretary for a while and then I also was the conference chair, so I was the head person in charge of planning the conference. But there's a large committee of people that help with that. And so, currently I am the immediate past chair on the board. And that organization is a trade association, a 5 0 1 that is a group of. All sorts of folks. Honestly, there are companies like Mine, garbage and Recycling companies, transfer stations, local governments are, a lot of local governments are a part of that organization. There are reuse organizations, recycling facilities, recycling nonprofits. kind of a mishmash of folks that are in the sustainable materials management world. Yeah. And so, we have an annual conference that we have every year that with education opportunities in the sustainable materials management world as well as, some tours throughout the year, different forums. we like to think of ourselves as kind of a convener of all the interested parties on this topic. it's a good opportunity for all of us to learn about things at the same time, to network with each other, learn from each other, and, it's a really great organization.

Cory Connors: 9:17

Yeah, I agree. I was very impressed, with the, the meeting in oc I think it was October, wasn't it? in Bend and Beautiful Bend, Oregon. If you haven't been, if you're listening, check it out. It's an amazing place to go. Will it be in Bend again this year?

Kristin Leichner: 9:31

we move around the state. So the next one is coming up in October, again of 2023, and it will be at Salahan, which is at the Oregon coast, just south of Lincoln City.

Cory Connors: 9:41

Not a bad place to go. Yeah. Smart. Yeah. Very good idea. to make it a place where people want to go. And get more attendance. I've learned that about those, conferences, but I learned a lot and, learned. I was very impressed with the D E Q and their presentation, our department of Environmental quality for those listening, I know you know what that means, Kristen, they had some really candid discussions about our new laws that are coming up and. Very frank that hey, we're not sure yet, on some of this stuff. we're, kind of playing it by ear and I'd love to get your opinion on, how you think those new laws will affect a company like yours and will affect, people like me who are just, customers.

Kristin Leichner: 10:27

Yeah, I think in the long run it will make recycling more accessible for everybody. Whether that mean that there are more opportunities to bring recyclables, there are some materials that are harder to add to the mix because of the sorting needs. but it's not that they aren't recyclable, it's that you can't always mix everything together. So, historically, those have been handled through depots and things like that, where you can bring the material somewhere, but it may not be collected. At the curb from you. Right. so part of the Recycling Modernization Act, which we call the R m A for short, so the r m a part of that is there will be a lot more depots spread across the state. And how many depends on the population in different areas, but, there will be a lot more recycling depots for those, covered products that may not be on the curbside list. So styrofoam as an example, that is a material that the producers are responsible for, managing as this bill takes effect, and that material will be handled most likely in depots. there will, there's also a. Part of the process is to standardize what is collected throughout the state of Oregon. So it's called the Uniform Statewide Collection List, or U S C L for short. And so what will happen there is there will be a statewide list of what can be recycled, how those programs collect. The recycling is still decided by the local governments, but what you can recycle in Bend, what you can recycle in Portland, what you can recycle in Ashland, everything will be the same list. So there will be consistency throughout the state of what can and cannot be recycled at the local level. and there's also a truth and labeling component. And so, you know what typically causes a lot of confusion for people that are trying to decide what the right card is to put things in, is that there's not a lot of regulation on, labeling your product as recyclable. And so there's a truth and labeling component that is still being worked out. There was a task force that worked on kind of the first step of that. There's more work to be done there, but the hope is that it will result in it being a lot clearer for Oregonians when they are standing at their, kitchen garbage and recycling side by side and going, I don't know which cart or which container this goes in. They won't be Right. Yeah. Misled by the labeling on the product and it will be more easily understandable.

Cory Connors: 12:42

That's excellent. I'm excited about it. I know it's a lot of work for you and companies like yours. Will you. As an example, will you be able to collect more materials or will it prohibit some of the things that you've been collecting or do you know yet?

Kristin Leichner: 12:57

that's still being worked on. The first rule advisory committee just completed its work and the D E Q will be putting out the draft rules shortly. And then, there, there will be folks commenting on that and through that process it will then eventually go to the E Q C for final approval. So, I believe the current draft of the list will. Change the list slightly. So some things might be coming off, but some things might be going on. And when I say change the list, for me, it's the list that currently exists in the metro area for other parts of the state. That list would most likely be expanding if they have more limited list. So for my company in particular, I think there will be some changes. Like I said, some things coming off, some things going on. but there's still more to come on that nothing is set in stone quite yet. So.

Cory Connors: 13:46

I bet very fluid situation, and I'm sure they'll have to allow you time to renovate your facility and add in new equipment if it's needed for the sorting process. do you feel like that's, you'll need to add on to your facility or do you feel like the, what you have now will be fairly sufficient?

Kristin Leichner: 14:05

So for us, we are, we reload the recycling, but we don't sort it ourselves. Okay? So we take our smaller route trucks and then reload it and we bring it to the recycling facilities that do the sorting. Okay? So while we do pull recycling out of the garbage, we don't sort the mixed recycling. So, For us, we won't have to do any immediate changes or expansions. I know that the recycling facilities in the region that take most of the material from the state, from throughout the state, some of them are, proactively trying to implement some of those changes and put us. Put in some of those new pieces of equipment. some are in a little bit more of a holding pattern, trying to kind of see how things play out. And, the, there's a little bit of a chicken and the egg situation with when the funding from the producer Responsibility organization kicks in for those facilities to upgrade their equipment. It doesn't kick in until the program. List changes. So it's like July 1st, 2025, the list will change and okay, now maybe funding is available, but the, they're gonna start receiving that material before the funding is available. And so there's a little bit of a, catch 22

Cory Connors: 15:08

there. That's a frustrating thing to think about, and I bet a lot of, municipalities around the country are dealing exactly with that, with all of these new extended producer responsibility laws, coming into, effect. Wow. That is such a big thing to think about. Yeah.

Kristin Leichner: 15:24

I think Oregon did a very good job leading up to the legislation to try and. Insert a lot of detail before it became law. Mm-hmm. But there's still a lot of implementation and I know some of the other states that have passed e p R bills are, there's, are, were a little bit more conceptual, bare bones. We'll figure it out as we go along, which, you have to figure it out at some point, whether you do it before or after. I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes. But I do feel that Oregon has set themselves up to have a strong program because folks have been engaged in this for. Four and five years and it's just gonna continue. And the same folks that kind of started down that path are still engaged and trying to help make this a successful program.

Cory Connors: 16:06

So. I agree. It's exciting. It's, for people like you and me, this is like, Christmas. It's, it's very interesting. It's a lot to learn about. I think a lot of consumers are really confused. And, a lot of companies like mine are very confused as to what's going to happen in the world of packaging. but I'd love to get your thoughts on what can a consumer do? to be more helpful, to, to somebody like you and your company.

Kristin Leichner: 16:34

I think the. I learned when Metro, our regional government, did some research a couple of years ago. we used to use the phrase, when in doubt, throw it out. Mm-hmm. That if you're not sure that it's recyclable, don't put it in the recycling. but the research showed that people are pretty sure they know what's right, even if what they know might be incorrect. And so using that terminology isn't necessarily the best because people aren't in doubt. They think product A goes in the recycling, even if it doesn't. And so, I think with that in mind, I would recommend that people really engage and read the information that comes from their local hauler, because your local folks are gonna know for sure what is acceptable, and the big corporations that put information on their labels might not know what is acceptable in your local area. Yeah. And so, information from your garbage and recycling company, information from your city, from your county, I know we all send stuff out. Please read it, engage with it, ask questions if you're, if you, or there might be an opportunity that if you can't recycle it at the curb, we can tell you where you can take it. So it isn't always a, no, it's not recyclable. It just might be a no, it can't go at the curb, but here's another place where it can be handled correctly. So, that, that would be, I think my core message is try and engage with what your local folks are telling you. So,

Cory Connors: 17:51

Yeah. And I think that's it. It's a, it's an education issue. It's a, Hey, maybe take the time to look at what's, picked up at your curb specifically. I know that's something I've worked on diligently because it's part of my job, but I think, a lot of people don't know even that there are new services like Recycle Plus. is that something that your company is taking part in? Yeah. you wanna talk us through that? Sure. I'm excited to share that message with, Oregonians. is it just in Oregon or? I haven't researched it that much. So,

Kristin Leichner: 18:24

I know it's primarily in the metro area, which is the Portland Metro area, the three county area. there is also some Recycle Plus services being provided in Eugene Lane County areas, and then, also in Southwest Washington. Waste Connections is providing the program in Vancouver area. So, and every program is slightly different, but I can tell you we all share the same name, but I can tell you what, the details of our program are. So, we. As I said earlier, historically hard to recycle items have been handled at Depots and Dropoff locations. But we were hearing from customers that, from a convenience standard, they would really like to have more of those materials collected for them. They can't always get to the places to drop them off, and so we worked with our local government partners to set up a program called Recycle Plus, where we have four items that we collect. That, include foam plastic, so your plastic bag shrink wrap that comes around toilet paper, things like that. We also take, number one p e t clamshells, most commonly berry containers. we also take textiles and those are intended to be materials that are passed useful life, so not items that would be worthy of donation, but items that might have holes in them and things like that you would otherwise just throw away. And then compact fluorescent light bulbs. So it is an on-call program so customers can sign up to have their service, and then when their bin is full, contact us for a collection. And then we also have a quarterly specialty item. So the first one we did was in January and we did string lights, so Christmas lights, things like that. Awesome. Yeah. And those went for recycling. And then our next one coming up is coming up in June, and that one is for, Decent condition, pots and pans. And we're working with a community in the Chiton area called Community Warehouse that will take in those materials, as donation and then they will find folks in need that, are trying to set up new households and things like that. And so they'll be reused. And then some of the other items we have kind of on the future agenda are small kitchen utensils. So again, you think about setting up a brand new kitchen for yourself and you need all the serving spoons and the whisk. And all of those sorts of things. So that will be one item. And then I believe the other one we have in the works is, bedding, linens, and again, things that are worthy of reuse, not something you would otherwise throw away.

Cory Connors: 20:34

That's amazing. I love that. I didn't know all that. The unique items were gonna be a part of this. What a cool program. I was, impressed with the idea of the holiday lights. I know that's, something that the MPHs really don't like because, they gum up the gears, for sorting, so it makes sense to get those out of there.

Kristin Leichner: 20:54

Yeah. Film plastics do similar things, so film plastics, highly recyclable, can't go in the mix because it gets wrapped around the machinery. So similar, hoses, string lights, film, plastic, those are all really bad when they end up in the curbside recycling.

Cory Connors: 21:07

Nobody wants to do that. I did a tour of the Far West recycling facility and, was very impressed. they said the same thing, like, we don't want, don't send your lights, don't send your garden hoses. Yeah. Keep the poly out for this facility. It was not ready for the poly. Yeah. Well be building new facilities to handle, poly and things like that. or how is that gonna work?

Kristin Leichner: 21:30

My understanding is the facilities we have currently, there's, they still have some capacity. So there may be facilities that are built because there are other, entrance to the system and things like that. But I, I don't believe there's a huge need in terms of, oh my gosh, we're not gonna be able to handle all of this material. We need, another two to three facilities.

Cory Connors: 21:50

That's good, I think. That's, kind of a relief to the system. I know that'd be very expensive to build more buildings. I have to be honest, I was very surprised about the styrofoam. when I heard that at a aor, I thought, Wow, we're really gonna be able to recycle styrofoam or polystyrene. I thought they were gonna outlaw it, and that's what they said. That's what the d EQ said too. And I, so that made me feel good. Like at least I, we both thought the same thing. had, did that surprise you as well, or were you expecting that?

Kristin Leichner: 22:21

I don't know a whole lot about chemical recycling. I know that some folks have been asking questions about the environmental benefit of it, and is it a good thing or a bad thing? and I think D E Q has done some research on it and determined that if it. That in some cases it is a good thing, depending on the transportation to get it there. Is it being densified before it gets transported? Potentially large distances and things like that. If you're hauling a lot of air to get it recycled, it's probably not outweighing that environmental. impact. so, we have taken styrofoam at our depot off and on for several years. we took it for a while and then didn't have a place to recycle it anymore and stopped taking it. And then, we have been taking it again probably for four or five years now. and we work with a local chemical recycler to get that material process that is near us. But sometimes it's easier for customers that have more than one thing to drop off. They'll come to our depot and drop offs. Styrofoam as well as the four or five other things they have and may not wanna drive to the facility that only takes styrofoam.

Cory Connors: 23:21

So it's a convenience thing, right? I think it, it's a ease of use. It's an encouragement to recycle. that's such an in important part of all of this, is how do we make it simple for the consumer? And I think as packaging professionals, we've been looking at that, for many years, is how do we make it so it's easy for everybody to recycle this or reuse. Yeah.

Kristin Leichner: 23:45

Yeah, I think there's some interesting discussions going on related to potentially, QR codes, smart labels, things like that. So it, so large companies can have more regional recycling instructions because it can be, based on your current location, what do you do with this versus, recycle everything. And maybe you can recycle it in four states, but not 50. And is that really the right messaging to be

Cory Connors: 24:10

sending? So, Yeah, well said. I think it's, IM important that we standardize some packaging. We make it simple for companies like yours to actually recycle this material or it just doesn't make sense. We, like you said, when in doubt, throw it out. I agree with that. And, I think it's. It's hard for people like us to throw things in the garbage that we know are technically recyclable. but if we don't have access to the recycling, drop off location or if it's not near, or, I think my friend Ryan, from Recyclops said 50 million households don't even have access to any recycling. and so that's a challenge. So we're very blessed here to have that access.

Kristin Leichner: 24:51

Thank you. Yeah, and I would just add too, I think that, the Oregon d e Q has done a lot of really interesting research on lifecycle analysis and if we can all kind of reframe our minds on the sustainability of a product doesn't necessarily, whether or not a product is recyclable doesn't necessarily mean it's a sustainable product because there are examples of, three different types of packaging for the same product and the one that isn't recyclable actually has the best environmental. impact. Yeah, so, reframing that sometimes it's okay to use the packaging that keeps you from having the food waste, even if that packaging ends up being something you would put in your garbage because the food waste you would've had otherwise is actually a larger negative environmental impact. But it's really hard to retrain us all to think about it that way, and not just like recycling good, garbage bad. That's so much simpler.

Cory Connors: 25:42

That is so true. I always say there's nothing sustainable about rotten food and, we need to consider that exactly what you said. That is exactly the point we need to make to people that are confused by certain kinds of materials, you can't just say no more plastic. If we did that, it would have a massive impact in a very negative way. Of course, some positive ways, but, most of that impact would be really negative right now cuz we're not ready for that. it's like, giving everybody electrical cars and not, having the grid ready yet. it's, let's, you gotta have both at the same time. So, Yeah. great points. Thank you so much for making some time for us. I would like to ask you one more question that, that's very fascinating to me. AI has been, used in sorting facilities and in the garbage industry more and more lately. how do you think that will affect things?

Kristin Leichner: 26:36

One of the things I've learned about really just recently is the AI opportunities for. Identification of materials that shouldn't be in the carts. So, there's companies out there doing work to, essentially do contamination spotting and education where it, as the camera spots the material coming out of the recycling cart, it can look for certain things as previously designated, like plastic bags or styrofoam. If those things are not part of your program and it can identify that, it then uses. The Google image and AI to make sure that, the house is the same house as the geolocation on the truck. And that it also can read the serial number on the cart to verify that against your customer service database. And it can automatically send a postcard to a customer with a photo of, oops, you put this in your cart and you shouldn't have. And they've shown that it has, made impacts on reducing contamination. And, I think that's a really exciting evolution and how to, If people are putting things on their cart and they don't get. Information that what they're doing is incorrect, they're going to think they're doing it correctly. And so, right. we all have to take ownership of doing our best to see those things when they happen. Most of the time they're honest mistakes and educate folks and so they can try and do it better the next time, but if we don't see it, then we're not letting them know it shouldn't have been in there and they don't know they're doing anything wrong. And so, that just adds another layer to our education process and is something I'm really excited about there being a future

Cory Connors: 28:01

to that. It is exciting. I agree. And it's gonna take time. I think we all need to be patient. especially us cuz we know what's coming and we know we're excited about it. Right. Well, thank you so much Kristen, for your time. I appreciate your wisdom and anything else that you wanted to say before we, we finish. No, just thank you for having me. Oh, you're welcome. And thank you Lance Aurora for sponsoring this podcast. If you're listening, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode, and stay tuned for more.