Far West Recycling (FWR) was founded in January, 1980 by Tom Lindbloom, president of Conifer Douglas Logging in Roseburg, Oregon and Ron Frashour, a former plant manager for Independent Paper Stock. The first FWR facility was located in Beaverton, Oregon.  In the first month of operation, FWR sold a combined 100 tons of Old Corrugated Containers (OCC) to Willamette Industries located in Albany and Old Newsprint (ONP) to Publishers Paper in Oregon City.

In the spring of 1985, John Drew joined FWR as an owner/manager at the Beaverton location. John opened a brokerage division to buy and sell box trimmings from the Northwest regional paper plants and paper mills. In 1988 Ron Frashour sold his interest in the company to John. Over the years, John Drew shared his ownership of the company with key management personnel and in 2010 John retired and passed the reigns of the company to the President & CEO, Keith Ristau. In 2021 Keith Ristau retired and our former Chief Financial Officer, Mike McCracken, became our current President & CEO.  John continues in his role as Chairman of the Board and works with our three other board members. 

In 2002, FWR began processing metal and electronic scrap at our two facilities in Hillsboro and Northeast Portland. In 2017, we opened our first facility, Far West Metals, exclusive to metals and electronics recycling located in Tualatin. Today, our facilities combined process approximately 150,000 tons of recyclables annually. We continue to invest and grow in the future of recycling. In our three plants FWR is able to offer processing and marketing for paper, metal and electronic recyclables to most of the residents and businesses in the state of Oregon and throughout the Northwest.