As Colorado Recycles Week kicks off — which Gov. Jared Polis proclaimed officially Monday afternoon — a new report revealed Colorado’s recycling rate in 2019 dropped from 17.2% to 15.9%. That’s less than half the national average of 35%.
Worse, “Coloradans sent 6.1 million tons of municipal waste to landfills, over 90% of which could have been recycled or composted to the benefit of the climate and the local economy,” as a U.S. Public Interest Research Group press release lamented.
Despite the downward trend, there was good news, and Aspen and Pitkin County were the focus of it: the annual State of Recycling in Colorado Report, co-authored by Eco-Cycle and CoPIRG, also featured updated city-by-city recycling rates. The report lauded the cities of Aspen, Durango, Boulder, Loveland, and Fort Collins as leaders.
In fact, mountain and rural areas — collectively considered Greater Colorado — have already surpassed the 2021 recycling goals set by the state.
Eco-Cycle and CoPIRG hosted a panel Monday morning that included “leaders from some of the Colorado cities doing the best job at recycling and composting,” as the CoPIRG announcement described the event, which also noted Aspen specifically as “leading the way.”
Mayor Torre was among the panelists.
“It was a really nice event today,” he said afterward. “the city of Aspen was recognized for some of its successes. We were identified as tied with Durango for the greatest diversion rate outside the Front Range.”
The city of Aspen boasts a 33% total diversion rate and a 24% recycling rate, he explained. Pitkin County, too, ranked No. 1 in the state for county recycling and diversion rates, at 38%.
“While the acknowledgement is nice, I think it still highlights that we have more work to do,” Torre said.
To that end, the city council is dedicating a Dec. 7 work session to a 2021 waste program that “talks about council’s goal around waste diversion, recycling, cardboard capture and composting. It’s a priority for this council, and the conversation will be coming forward soon,” the mayor continued.
Among the likely discussion points will be the prospect of implementing an Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, policy that would require producers to fund recycling systems. Indeed, it’s possible such policies become statewide initiatives in the future.
“An EPR policy for packaging and paper products would provide the needed investment in infrastructure, services, and education to accelerate Colorado’s recycling economy and can be done without burdening local governments or residents. We’re excited that CDPHE is currently studying these options and think this is priority legislation for Colorado in the coming years,” said Kate Bailey, Policy & Research Director at Eco-Cycle and lead author on the report.
