Friendly Area Neighbors (FAN) are invited to recycle their qualifying plastics at the next FAN Plastics Collection event. This event is run by volunteers of the FAN Sustainability Team.

1. Only FAN residents, property owners, or businesses located within our FAN boundaries are invited. You can find another event, or learn how to create your own, on Lane County's Community Plastics Collection page.
2. ​We strongly recommend scheduling an appointment using the form below. Appointments will be honored before walk-ins.
3. When an appointment time block is full, it is removed from the form. Appointments get scheduled quickly due to high demand and our limited capacity. You can still sign up for the wait list to receive updates, and to volunteer. Volunteers must be pre-approved and may recycle their qualifying plastics at the event.
4. Scroll to the bottom of this page for details of how to prepare your qualifying plastics and other relevant information.

Friendly Area Neighborhood Plastics Collection
Tuesday, February 25, 2020, 4:00 to 6:00 PM (before FAN Emergency Preparedness Team Skill Building Session)
Washington Park Community Center, 2025 Washington Street, Eugene

Qualifying plastics

• No "drop-offs". All items must be screened by a Community Collector.
• All items must be clean, dry, and their adhesive labels removed. Items with food residue, rim foil, or other foreign substances will be rejected.
• Presort plastics into these 4 categories. A magnifying glass or loupe is helpful.
  • #2 Tubs and Lids
  • #2 Bottles and Jugs
  • #4 Bottles, Tubs, and Lids
  • #5 Bottles, Tubs, and Lids
• Lane County Plastics #2, #4 & #5 Collection Details and Tips

Welcome to the "new normal" for plastics recycling. You are doing something good for our stressed oceans and the environment.

Tips to prepare plastics and manage yogurt containers

The photo below shows some of our rejects. Note the labels, foil rims, and odd items with no resin code (the number surrounded by three arrows arranged in a triangle). Some single use yogurt containers are oddly shaped, making them hard to clean and dry, especially when the yogurt residue hardens or becomes moldy. Fill them with soapy water and soak to loosen the gunk. Better yet, switch to bulk yogurt and fill a small container with a dollop of yogurt and top with your favorite fruit or granola. Best of all, make your own yogurt and never buy the single use plastics again. It's easy and safe.

by Jim Watson

A century ago Eugene's Mercy Hospital was located on College Hill (see blog post "Eugene General/Mercy Hospital"). To connect the closest College Crest trolley stop on Willamette Street to the hospital, stairs were constructed in 1910. Though both the hospital and the trolley disappeared in the mid-1920s, the stairs remain across Willamette Street from Civic Park.
 
The stairs, perhaps the last of their kind, connected to one of Eugene’s trolley routes that was part of a streetcar system that was once described as the greatest for a small city in the United States. The pioneer railway is remembered for having employed Wiley Griffon, Oregon’s first black trolley operator.

Gwynne McLaughlin spearheaded a project to paint a mural on the stairs to honor their history while preventing the graffiti that has plagued them. Muralist Ila Rose painted the mural in May of 2019. Questions? Interest in helping keep the mural in good shape?  Please contact Jim at [email protected].

Black and White Images Property of Lane County History Museum. Used by Permission. Historical information compliments of Andrew Fisher.