For such a green city, Denver’s recycling rate is a surprisingly low 18 percent. This means that out of everything that city residents throw out, only 18 percent ends up in recycling carts.
The national average is 34 percent, according to a recent study by the Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG) and Eco-Cycle, a non-profit recycler. Boulder clocks in at 54 percent and Seattle has a 60 percent recycling rate.
Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver City employees are committed to changing this number. However, it takes more effort to recycle than to just throw things in the trash, and people often don’t change their behavior unless incentivized to do so.
“Denver continues to improve our recycling and composting services citywide. One of the City’s Sustainability Goals is to increase Denver’s recycling and composting rate to 34 percent or greater by 2020 so we can secure our basic resources for the long term. We encourage residents to utilize recycling and composting services made available to them and help us achieve that goal together,” said Mayor Hancock’s Deputy Communications Director Jenna Espinoza.
One of the main reasons Denver’s rate is so low is land (and landfill space) is plentiful and disposal fees are relatively inexpensive. When that is the case, it can be hard for cities to develop recycling and composting programs that are cost competitive. In some places—including Houston, Kansas City and Seattle—residents are allowed a certain number of trash bags each week, and are charged if they exceed that limit.
“Fifty percent of what Denver residents throw away is compostable organic material. Without composting, the city cannot meet its recycling and disposal goals. We encourage all residents who can, to sign up for compost service.”
Another issue is recycling in Denver is voluntary and not everyone has easy access to curbside recycling. The service is not available to residents of multifamily properties over seven units unless landlords or HOAs cover it. Businesses also have to pay for recycling service.
Up until recently, city residents had to enroll themselves in Denver’s recycling program. In order to increase participation, City employees began automatically dropping off purple recycling containers last year to households scheduled to have their dumpsters replaced with black trash carts that hadn’t already signed up for recycling. As of May, the citywide average for recycling enrollment was 77 percent. This number does not reflect how many people are actually recycling, just who is enrolled in the service and have carts.
On any given week, 85 percent of the people who have recycling carts put them out for collection, according to Charlotte Pitt of Denver Solid Waste. “This is a very high number. It’s hard to tell if the remaining 15 percent are out of town, only put their carts out once a month (recycling pickup is every other week) or just don’t recycle,” Pitt said.
Composting is one clearly identified solution that could cut the amount of trash that ends up in city landfills. “Fifty percent of what Denver residents throw away is compostable organic material. Without composting, the city cannot meet its recycling and disposal goals. We encourage all residents who can, to sign up for compost service,” said Pitt.
Compostable items include yard debris, scraps, non recyclable paper items and pet hair. In 2016, 8,646,000 pounds of compostable material was collected in Denver.
Not everyone is eligible for compost service, although new routes were recently added on Broadway between Sixth and Florida Avenues and all of Green Valley Ranch. Of the 176,000 single family homes under seven units for which Denver provides trash collection, 110,000 are eligible for compost pick up. Roughly 11,000 Denver households have signed up for service, according to Pitt. The maximum capacity for composting is currently 14,000-15,000 households, so Pitt says there is room for 3,000-4,000 more.
A deterrent to participation is cost; Denver residents must pay $29.25 per quarter, or $120 per year to participate. In order to save money, neighbors should consider sharing service. Composting carts are picked up weekly and, unless you are feeding a hockey team, it can be difficult for many households to fill up a cart of compostable material every week.
Denver does not profit from its composting service, but the program is set up to cover its costs. In order to get the lowest possible processing fee and keep service cost low, the city’s compost vendor keeps all the compost and sells it. Pitt says the process is expensive and reduction volume is low; every 10 tons of material yields about one ton of compost.
For more information on the city’s recycling and compost services, or to sign up, visit denvergov.org or dial 311.
