PORTLAND, Ore. — This coming weekend will mark the end of Portland Pizza Week, and the city will also see a wide range of community and volunteer events over the next few days in the lead up to Earth Day on Monday.
That convergence has the potential to leave many environmentally-conscious Portlanders wondering: what's the right way to dispose of a carry-out pizza box? Do they have to wind up in the landfill, or can they go out with other cardboard recycling?
THE QUESTION
Can take-out pizza boxes be put in residential recycling bins in Oregon?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, pizza boxes generally cannot be put into recycling bins in Portland because they carry grease. However, they are eligible to go in the compost or yard waste bin.
WHAT WE FOUND
Paper and cardboard food containers tend to be recyclable unless they're coated in the kind of wax or plastic often found on frozen food containers. Pizza boxes don't have that problem, but they do tend to carry a layer of grease and dried cheese. That makes them a no-go for the blue bin; recycling processors can't handle food residue very well.
There's some debate about whether the grease is really that much of a problem; several online sources, including Pizza Hut and Dominos, say it's possible to recycle pizza boxes. Many cite a 2021 study that found recycled paper wasn't compromised by grease in the pulping process (the study was conducted by WestRock, a major pizza box supplier).
But when it comes to Portland specifically, what matters is what the region's governments and recycling services want residents to do with the pizza boxes, and they all say the same thing: don't put pizza boxes in the blue bins.
Portland-area recycling provider Republic Services notes that uncontaminated pizza box material is fine, so if you tear off the lid and other parts of the box that aren't grease-coated, those pieces can go in with the recycling — but the greasy parts of the box cannot.
Fortunately, there's another option: the City of Portland's website specifically lists pizza boxes as eligible to go in yard waste bins, even if they're coated in grease. You just have to make sure you've removed anything that isn't cardboard or food scraps, such as wax paper box liners or plastic pizza savers.
