About Us

PLC Recycling was incorporated in 1992 by Rocky Botkin. It started with a handful of equipment and a big desire to grow a business. Originally, all of the work was of a land clearing nature for residential and commercial sites. By 1998, the company had grown and was able to add another dimension to the business, portable grinding. The grinding was successful and led to the idea of bringing the business to a recycling yard instead of taking the equipment to the job site.

In 2000 Rocky was joined by his father, Jack Botkin, as a business partner with the idea of expanding the company. In May 2000, PLC Recycling purchased its first recycling center at SE 101st and Foster Rd. (Portland), and simultaneously opened a recycling center from scratch in Oregon City. By 2002, Rocky and Jack began looking for new locations, and in October 2002, they opened a third recycling center in North Portland on N. Suttle Road, and started negotiations on a composting facility and recycling center in Aumsville, Oregon. In 2004, the recycling center owned by the City of West Linn came up for a management bid, and PLC was the successful firm. At this time PLC owned four recycling centers (Oregon City, SE Foster, N. Suttle, and Aumsville) and managed one more (West Linn).

The recycling centers are facilities which accept yard debris, grass leaves, stumps and brush, wood, and at the N. Suttle and Oregon City yard accepting source separated roofing (asphalt composition OR cedar shake with tar paper). This material is delivered by residential homeowners and commercial customers alike. We do not pick up or provide drop boxes. Compost Oregon in Aumsville, takes all of the above and sells and delivers compost throughout the valley (Salem through Portland).

In 2006, PLC purchased Nature’s Needs in North Plains; another compost processing facility. Nature’s Needs also sells and delivers compost, and accepts all of the above wastes except for roofing.

In 2007, the N. Suttle Rd. yard became a Material Recovery Facility (MRF; pronounced murf) where the facility accepts loads of [mixed or sorted] "dry", non-putrescible waste (putrescible waste is waste which is liable to decay, spoil or become putrid) containing high percentages of recyclable materials including mixed waste paper, metals, plastics, yard debris, wood, concrete, rock, brick dry asphalt, construction and demolition wastes, land clearing debris, and gypsum wallboard (untreated and unpainted).

The opening of the MRF yard in N. Portland and the other five locations are all efforts made by PLC to reduce the amount of waste entering the landfills. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. Recycling reduces pollution, saves energy, mitigates global climate change, and reduces pressures on biodiversity. The benefits of recycling are found in every stage of the life cycle of a consumer product: from the mining of raw materials through use and final disposal.

PLC Recycling and all of the employees are proud to play such an important role in improving our living environment and reducing the amount of waste entering landfills. PLC is always trying to find new ways to reuse resources which would otherwise be considered "garbage."