Resourceful PDX helps Portlanders waste less, spend wisely, and support community

What is Resourceful PDX?

The Resourceful PDX program helps Portland residents make simple changes to conserve natural resources, save money, use second-hand goods, support community-based sharing, and extend the life of their stuff through basic maintenance and repair.

The program connects residents with those resources – including community-based organizations, local businesses, government agencies, and each other – through:

• A map showing what resources exist in their neighborhood and a search function to find what they need within the city.
• An event calendar listing upcoming Repair Cafes, swap events, and more.
• A blog that offers timely tips, like holiday gift-giving or spring cleaning, as well as highlights of new organizations and resources.

Resourceful PDX focuses on four categories:

• Reuse: Choose second-hand, salvage, and vintage, or repurpose something old into a new creation.
• Borrow and Share: Cut down on clutter by borrowing, sharing, and renting items.
• Fix and Maintain: Extend the life of your stuff with basic maintenance and repair.
• Buy Smart: Create memories instead of excess stuff by planning ahead and shopping with purpose.

These are effective ways residents can get the things they need while saving money, avoiding waste, and cutting clutter – while simultaneously conserving natural resources and reducing carbon emissions. 

The Resourceful PDX website also shares resources for life transition moments, such as moving to a new home, growing a family, home improvement, and kids heading back to school. These are often periods of increased stress, pressure, clutter – and stuff – which can also lead to greater waste. During these transitions, people are exploring new ways of doing things (new neighborhoods, new schools, new projects) and developing new habits, which makes this an ideal time to share information and examples of how to do things differently.

The program promotes events and efforts organized by the local sharing community, from tool libraries and clothing swaps to neighborhood food exchanges and Buy Nothing groups. 

Why it matters: Good for you. Good for the planet.

By choosing to reuse, repair, share, and buy used, you can shrink your carbon footprint while saving money and supporting local organizations in Portland.

Making new stuff takes a lot of energy. Raw materials must be extracted from the environment and processed, turned into products, shipped to stores, and then driven to your home. That process creates pollution and emits greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

That's why reducing, reusing, and repairing—and then recycling once the item is fully worn out—is the best way to reduce the environmental impacts of the things we buy and use.

Benefits of reducing and reusing

• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
• Prevents pollution caused by reducing the need to harvest new raw materials.
• Saves energy.
• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change.
• Reduces the amount of waste that will need to be recycled or sent to landfills.

Learn more at the Environmental Protection Agency's Reducing and Reusing webpage.

Upstream emissions: A hidden climate cost

Most carbon emissions happen before you buy a product.

Producing new products takes energy, raw materials, and transportation, all of which cause pollution. That means not buying something in the first place is one of the best actions you can take.

Waste prevention has the potential for large environmental benefits because it typically reduces environmental impacts over all stages of the life cycle of materials: resource extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and end-of-life management like recycling or disposal [Oregon Department of Environmental Quality].

For this reason, Oregon law defines waste prevention as the number one priority method for managing waste in Oregon.

What you can do

There are many simple ways to reduce your waste, many of which have other benefits, like saving money, supporting local businesses and nonprofits, and spending time with friends, family, and neighbors.

You can find tips and resources to help you reuse, repair, borrow, and share here in the Resourceful PDX webpages.

History of Resourceful PDX

In 2010, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) started the Resourceful PDX pilot program as a values-based, long-term public awareness and behavior-change campaign focused on thoughtful consumption. The program's creation was informed by the 2007 City Council vote to approve the Portland Recycles! Plan, mandating the City work with the community to reduce waste as part of a goal to reduce per capita waste below 2005 levels by 2015.

Before creating Resourceful PDX, the City conducted extensive audience research and message testing to identify barriers and benefits, values and motivators, and existing knowledge. Some key findings were: 

• A “win/win” message of personal/environmental benefit resonated with people.  
• Top values/benefits of reuse were thriftiness, responsibility, self-sufficiency, fun, health and family, smarts, achievement. 
• People wanted more “how-to” information and less “why to” explanation.  

We heard from community members that they want to reduce waste and shop in ways that benefit the community and the environment but they didn't always know how. They wanted advice and resources that make it easier to repair, share, borrow, and shop with purpose.

So, the City of Portland, in partnership with other reuse-focused organizations, created the Resourceful PDX program to help Portlanders make simple changes to save money, support the community, and conserve natural resources.