Tigard, OR Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Tigard does not write its own recycling list for commercial customers. Section 11.04.155 of the Tigard Municipal Code ties the City of Tigard to the Metro business recycling standard and to local administrative rules, and the exemption language starts with the words "Unless otherwise exempt." The Tigard text points to Metro Code Section 5.10.330 for the performance standard itself and does not restate the list of materials or the thresholds, so a business owner reads the Metro section alongside the city chapter.

The duty reaches far beyond restaurants and stores. The chapter defines "business" as any entity of one or more persons, corporate or otherwise, engaged in commercial, professional, charitable, political, industrial, educational, or other activity that is non-residential in nature, including public bodies. A "business recycling service customer" is a person who enters into a service agreement with a waste hauler or recycler for business recycling services. In the City of Tigard, service is delivered by a franchised hauler, because Chapter 11.04 bars anyone from offering collection service without a city franchise.

The City Manager or designee holds the rulemaking power. Section 11.04.185 authorizes administrative rules on the business recycling and business food waste requirements, adopted under the procedures in TMC Chapter 2.04. Section 11.04.190 makes the City Manager the enforcer. City agents, including police officers and other designated employees, are authorized to enter affected premises at reasonable times to check compliance, but they must first try to get the consent of the owner or person in control. If consent is refused, the representative has to obtain a search warrant from the city's municipal court before trying again to get in.

The chapter's stated policy goals include providing technologically and economically feasible recycling through solid waste collectors and complying with the Metro business recycling requirement, which explains why the local section is so short: the City of Tigard adopts the regional standard rather than writing a competing one.