Recycling NOT permitted?

Where is this Bridgeport Village anyway?....I've lived in Portland most of my life and I've never even heard of it.

Bear, would it have been just as easy to perform an I-net search as to post your question? This site was the first result I got when searching on "bridgeport village" and "portland":

 http://www.bridgeport-village.com/

Bridgeport Village is W of I-5, where SW Durham Rd and SW Boones Ferry Rd. meet in Tigard.

Not exactly my usual stomping grounds. I'd never heard of it either.

It doesn't surprise me that few folks who are reading this would know where Bridgeport Village is, since it is really NOT the kind of shopping area most of us gravitate toward. Believe me...nothing was bought there by either of us and we will not return there. We used to like shopping at the old Wild Oats and the old Borders. This new plaza is the epitome of faux prosperity. I would not even give it a mention except for the management's edict that recycling would NOT be permitted. That, I decided, was worth a mention on Indy. This is the kind of "mall" that is coming. This is the kind of no-person's land that is developing just outside of view. It is hideous and awful.

why not ask where "bridgeview village", or whatever they named it, is? Even if Bear had looked it up on the punishing box, would s/he really know if that was the specific burb you were referring to? Hmm, must be near a bridge, around one of the many interminable, dead highways sprouting up like cancers all over the world...sigh

i suggest we all send a letter to them describing how disgusting it is that they hold business and profits above recycling to preserve the environment we still have left.

Bridgeport Village Management Office
7455 SW Bridgeport Road
Suite 205
Tigard, OR 97224

or

p 503.968.8940
f 503.968.8047

It seems that there is a tone of resentment in this post. You have allies in the suburban nether regions. The fact is that there are not enough houses/apt's in the city to hold everyone and we have to live somewhere. Not to mention the fact that a crappy little condo anywhere near the center of town is half a million dollars. I hate that mall too and my digust with it is for all the same reasons as yours. It is California and all the stupidity that that entails. There is no reason to think, that as a small town dweller, I like that kind of fake culture nonsense.

You can buy a crappy little condo on the eastside for about 150,000--and be about 10 minutes from downtown by bike or bus.

Suburb-dwellers can be forgiven for living in the suburbs, it is after all much less expensive, but if you ask me there is no excuse for not creating community where they live. The tendency is to drive into Portland for something to do (such as nightclubbing) rather than fostering an environment for fun and excitement where they live. Also, people are voting with their money when they choose to go miles to the nearest WinCo Foods, Albertsons, or similar giant corporate store, rather than shop for groceries in their neighborhoods. Sure, it's cheaper NOW... but when truckers have to pay $5-10 for fuel because 98% of the adult population of America (and much of the global population) has been frittering away the available fuel on their trips to the store rather than walking / bicycling, how expensive are the three-thousand-mile-tomatoes going to be then? Will you even be able to get tomatoes out of season?

all I got was an answering machine

but I did leave a detailed message - I didn't yell and scream
I stated why I felt they were doing a disservice to the community and encouraged them to review their policy

Hope others will follow suit

I would think METRO would have some authority to ensure recycling. I would also think garbage prices would be extremely high without recycling. Anyone who happens to be unlucky enough to buy something at Bridgeport should remove all packaging and leave it with the store clerk.

No surprize that the bridgeport wouldn't support recycling.

Bridgeport village is an extremely interesting phenomenon. Just an ordinary mall really, dressed up to look like a small european village or maybe the kind of early 20th century american town, countless examples of which development has methodically destoyed over decades past.

It's not unlike the kind of village depicted in the movie, The Music Man, The Stepford Wives, or the early 60's television series, The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan. Disneyland designers could have dreamed bridgeport up. All these places strive for that illusion of squeaky clean, immaculate that is completely artificial and at odds with reality.

What you don't see, for example, are friendly winos on the sidewalks, hippies of any kind, or anybody not wearing, jcrew, banrepublic, abercrombie, havanajoe. No thrift store cobbled together outfits. No goths. No ravers. No hipsters. No funky jerry-rigged bicycles with funny trailers. Nobody's car breaks down on these streets, and you'll never see anybody fixing them on the street like in a real village.

This village is mostly for rich people. How many of them regard recycling with any level of seriousness? Even if many of them do, can you not imagine how bridgeport management would regard the prospect of people using the charming lanes of bridgeport to come into Wild Oats with a lot of old bottles, cans, newpapers, and plastic bottles?

Surrounding bridgeport is the usual crap of modern society; acres of paved over land for parking lots, and a monolithic parking structure, yet there is no room for any recycling bins.

A final note: In it's favor, bridgeport is an outdoor mall. If this aspect of future malls is the start of a trend, it's the one good thing I could say about them. There are umbrella holders scattered about the mall loaded with umbrellas for visitors to use. (So, if you need one, naturally I can't suggest you take it with you when you leave the mall, but that opportunity does exist.)

To think that developers, having spent millions to convert Lloyd Center from an outdoor mall, one of its strongest attributes, to its present claustrophobic state as an indoor mall, are now faced with the phenomena of a possibly changing trend toward the public's preference for outdoor, natural sensation as part of their shopping experience. Extraordinary turn of events.

> This is the kind of "mall" that is coming.

Well they won't be coming for long, not when gas hits $50 a gallon and people live six families to a house just to be closer to where the jobs are.

Yes, I do in fact listen to Paul Harvey. I wanted to respond to the article that stated "Bridgeport Village Does Not Allow Recycling." This could not be further from the truth. Bridgeport Village has seperate compactor and collection areas for trash and recyclables, and we monitor this very closely. We contract with Pride Disposal for the removal of both and receive an itemized statement on what was trash and what was recycle. The situation referred to with Wild Oats goes like this: Wild Oats who has always and currently has recycling insde the store approached us to place recycling bins on the outside of the store. We responded by saying we supported their desire to do this - we simply need a plan presented to show us and the City of Tualatin building inspector what the bins or collection area would look like. Issues such as fire and building code needed to be considered. We have not received any plans from Wild Oats on this, but I did speak with their regional director of marketing and she stated she would follow up on the matter with her corporate office. As to the numerous remarks (mostly negative) regarding Bridgeport Village posted above, I would argue that Bridgeport Village took an unsightly former landfill and made something useful out of it. Especially noteable is the fact that Bridgeport Village sits on a former Brownfield, instead of being developed on our ever-shrinking farm lands. I think that is commendable.

Respectfully,

Bob Dye
General Manager
Bridgeport Village
7455 SW Bridgeport Road, Suite 205
Tigard, OR 97224

Didn't anyone bother calling the Bridgeport Village management? I just found the contact info at www.bridgeport-village.com, finally talked w/ property manager Bob Dye. He's a real nice fellow and explained that Wild Oats has not got back to them about what kind of containers they would use (for the required city code approval) so as a result the containers haven't been approved. A person I talked to at Wild Oats (Lynn, not sure of spelling) said there was probably a miscommunication between Wild Oats / Bridgeport Village management. She said she'd follow up and see what can be done to get the recycling containers approved and put out there.

I appreciate the reporting and that people are concerned, and I share a lot of the sentiments here about suburban culture and sprawl. But, seriously, couldn't the original poster have made one simple phone call before writing the article?

I think the situation is more a reflection of the shoppers of Bridgeport Village than the management that after more than a week, people are still not being loud enough about this issue to get it fixed.

I had worked at Borders for several years. We had been told 2 years previous to the move that it was going to change everything, and they were right. First off the old store was really run down, not a lot of people know that, I believe that there was a several pockets of mold in the ventelation system because employees would become sick constantly (and truly). Recycling is not supported by the Bridgeport Village management simply because of lack of space. As sprawled out as it might seem, the architects did not provide any space for recycling. Trash itself overflows from the few dumpsters that are specified for debris by stores. These things get filled only after several hours in a working day, the rest must be set on the ground in front of the dumpsters till it is taken away. This is perhaps one of many "minor" problems that they need to take into consideration. At the original Borders store in Tigard/Tualatin (they never decided really what city they were in because it was right on the border...heh) recycling was encouraged, especially by the eco-friendly staff. The major consideration that Bridgeport Village management must deal with is parking. The parking structure was designed for only a couple hundred cars. There is little no parking in the vicinity and often times on busy weekends they will park a security guard in front of the parking lot ramp and tell people that they will need to find somewhere else to park. During the Christmas season this is taken into consideration for employees working at BPV, they park their cars about a half a mile away and are shuttled in regularly, this seemed to work very well for them...unfortunately this service did not translate into a customer based shuttle system. The working culture at Borders changed dramatically with a new General Manager who did not have experience dealing with a larger Borders store with an extremely high turn over in staff, an incredible lack of space and a growing dissatisfied customer base. Many had enjoyed the other store because it was darker, quieter and less busy, now it was very busy, a lot more light which I enjoyed quite a bit. At one point staff turn over was actually above 100%, which was an incredible wear and tear on staff that had been there for years. This was even more of a struggle because a normal book-seller job only paid .25 cents more than minimum wage...and it is a requirement for multiple interviews to see if the candidate would be placed in the store. It was when the general manager was constantly calling the district manager for mundane advice that I knew the leadership wasn't what it should be. I believe the nail in the coffin for me was listening to her make a call to the distric manager as to where a particular table should be placed in the store. Though my Borders employement ended as a sour one, I would ask that you not berate the employees on the floor about Bridgeport Village's policies...they literaly have no power over such decisions, nor does the upper management whom will only write an email regarding the complaints.