For Cynthia Parker, it started with plastic produce containers. She couldn't bring herself to toss them, so they began to pile up.

"It was an eye-opener to watch it accumulate," she says. "If you start to save what you usually throw away, you see how much you can recycle."

Her growing collection of hard-to-recycle plastic led Parker, a mother of five who lives in Northwest, to become a certified master recycler last fall. During the next couple of weeks, she'll help with a Metro recycling drive, where people may bring all manner of plastic for collection by Agri-Plas, a Brooks plastic recycling company.

Curbside recycling is limited to plastic containers with necks, but the special collection sites will accept everything from newspaper baggies and cottage cheese containers to nursery pots.

At the first collection she organized in January, people brought lawn chairs, kiddie pools and even a plastic Big Wheel bicycle, Parker says.

"Those are the things that are hard to get rid of that just get thrown out," says Steve Cohen, Master Recycler Program spokesman at the Portland Office of Sustainable Development.

The winter collection was scheduled during an ice storm, and Parker was surprised how many people showed up anyway. Organizers held a makeup collection soon afterward. One woman brought more than 2,000 compact disc cases. A man arrived with 18 months' worth of plastic newspaper bags, neatly folded.

"I could not believe how motivated people were to try and have their plastic go to another place aside from the landfill," she says.

The only items that won't be accepted at this summer's collection are polystyrene foam, PVC pipe, food-contaminated plastic, straws and small toys without the recycling triangle symbol, Cohen says.

What will the old plastics be made into?

"Just about anything made of plastic," Cohen says. "New bottles, flower pots, plastic tubs, railroad ties and toys are some of the items."

By saving plastic and composting food waste, Parker's family has reduced the trash to half a can a week. Parker says she's become much more aware of how her family consumes. This year, the family chose a live Christmas tree, and Parker has started making a point of reusing shopping bags. Her husband, Ron, jokes that she's become a "recycling zealot."

"We are far from doing all the things that we can do and should do," she says. "It's really a process of learning to do more and more."

Got a story idea for Green Life? portland@news.oregonian.com Become a master recycler: The 13-year-old program has so far trained 500 people. It's sponsored by Metro, the Portland Office of Sustainable Development, Washington and Clackamas counties, Recycling Advocates and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The program will offer a course in the fall on recycling, composting and waste reduction. The $50 course, plus 30 hours of community service, certifies volunteers to run recycling projects in neighborhoods, schools and businesses. Visit: www.masterrecycler.org Master recycler plastic collections 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday: St. James Episcopal Church, 11511 Bull Mountain Road, Tigard; Sunset Presbyterian Church, 14986 N.W. Cornell Road 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 6: Portland Community College, Cascade Campus, 701 N. Killingsworth St.; Calvary Christian Center, 10505 S.E. Holgate Blvd. For questions about what can be recycled, e-mail plastic.recyclers@gmail.com or call 503-823-7530. One word: plastics Portland households recycled about 1,000 tons of plastic in 2002, the most recent data available. Five 2-liter plastic bottles can be recycled into enough fiberfill for a ski jacket. In 2003, 276 tons of recyclable plastic were sent by Portland households to the landfill.