When is 6.9 million tons of trash a good thing?
When that number represents a slight improvement from the 7 million tons of Colorado trash sent to landfills in previous years, according to a new report from state recycling officials.
Solid waste officials, private composters, nonprofits and first gentleman Marlon Reis celebrated the eighth annual “State of Recycling” report recently at a city of Denver transfer site, calling the decrease the first improvement in waste diversion after years of stagnating Colorado efforts.
“I’m excited to announce that for the first time, this year we have seen our overall waste go down slightly, while our population continues to rise,” said Randy Moorman of Eco-Cycle, the largest recycler in the state and a leading waste education nonprofit. “Our total waste generated in Colorado went from just over 7 million tons in 2018 to less than 6.9 million tons in 2023, so our efforts as a state to reduce waste are starting to pay off now.”
Pressed by reporters on how Colorado can draw useful conclusions from a waste and recycling system with so many moving parts and so many possible measurement points, state officials acknowledged there’s some art mixed in with the science. They are calling the progress a trend, if not necessarily a bankable raw number. They rely in part on waste intake statistics from regulated landfills.
And they were quick to note Colorado has a long way to go just to catch up with other states that are better at recycling.
“Our recycling and composting rate is still too low at 15%,” Moorman said. “But Colorado is on the brink of a major change.”
State, city and private recycling leaders used their news conference outside a city of Denver gravel storage dome to cite a litany of state laws and local rules that should boost Colorado numbers in coming years. Top on their minds is the producer responsibility fee, which consumer goods companies will charge on themselves for each package they sell. Beginning in 2026, the collected packaging fees will fund an expansion of curbside recycling around the state to communities that don’t currently offer it.
A producer-controlled board will set the fees and create the funding system, which could raise about $310 million a year for statewide recycling improvements under a middle-case scenario the legislature approved last spring.
Recycling advocates say the producer-led program, involving big packaging users like Coca-Cola, Molson Coors, Colgate Palmolive and more, could boost waste diversion in Colorado by 50% once more state residents have access to easy recycling. They also hope a big increase in volume of recyclable packaging materials will help create a local industrial network of businesses that sort, process and manufacture recycled commodities into new goods.
Denver officials at the State of Recycling report release pointed to local changes that should boost waste diversion numbers in coming years. Denver announced this month it was speeding up its rollout of composting carts that are part of a recycling revamp, which included charging people monthly fees for garbage bins while giving recycling and composting carts for free.
Denver had been offering composting carts neighborhood by neighborhood, but will now offer the green carts to all residents by May, waste diversion and outreach manager Nina Waysdorf said. That speedup required a shift in recycling, which will now be picked up every other week instead of once a week. Denver officials confirmed this month that people who typically fill their recycling bins within a week can ask for a free second recycling cart under the new schedule, but those may not be delivered until later in 2025.
Denver’s emphasis on composting will focus where the volume is, officials said.
“We believe that in composting, we have a huge opportunity to increase our waste diversion in Denver and reduce our community’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Waysdorf said, noting that organic materials break down in landfills and produce damaging methane gas. “We know that about one-quarter of what people throw away in their trash in Denver could be recycled, and about half of what people throw in their trash could be put in the compost cart.”
Composting companies turn the organic material, from food waste to yard clippings, into garden mulch and soil.
One of the biggest challenges for composting companies remains educating residents and businesses about what can safely be included in the compost bins without damaging sorting equipment or spoiling loads with unusable materials. Front Range composters have had to warn city collectors and residents about contaminating loads with glass, plastic film, greasy cardboard or paper and other items.
Consumers are learning, said Julie Mach, owner of Salida’s Elements Mountain Compost. Sorting behavior will get another boost, officials said, from a 2023 Colorado law requiring more accurate in-store labeling of compostable materials.
The labeling “is going to clarify when you see a to-go container or green bag that says compostable on it, it’s actually got to be certified compostable. It goes through a rigorous testing process,” Mach said. “So that’s going to help improve that education piece for users, and help us as composters.”