It has been five years since Carbondale contracted Mountain Waste & Recycling to be the single-service hauler for the town’s trash and residential recycling. The Sopris Sun wanted to see, especially, how the single-stream curbside recycling program was going and sat down recently with Kevin Schorzman, Carbondale’s Public Works director. We also reached out to Doug Goldsmith, the regional sales manager at Mountain Waste.
The general impression is quite positive. Schorzman said, “I think it is going well from an overall perspective. Specific to recycling, that’s probably the one thing we have the least issue with.” He noted that the biggest problem, overstuffed cans with lids open, “got under control when we started using more stickers for warnings, versus driving by and just taking pictures.”
Goldsmith was also upbeat about recycling here, saying, “Carbondale has certainly embraced recycling … [and] has taken the program to heart.” Schorzman did note that the residential recycling program is not optional — i.e., everyone is required to have a can — adding, “There’s no advantage to not using it,” since residents pay for it anyway.
He clarified, however, that the program does not include commercial properties or residential buildings of about eight units or more. “We, as a town, cannot implement a program like we have for residential curbside recycling at a commercial level. And that’s based on state law.”
Nonetheless, the Town is doing a pretty good job of diverting recyclables out of trash that goes to the dump. Schorzman shared that the amount diverted varies between 25% and 30% by weight, adding, “Sometimes it’s seasonal, and other times it just fluctuates.” Goldsmith reported that for the third quarter of 2024, ending in September, the figure was 27.69%. That compares to an overall state rate of about 16%.
Left out of that total, however, are the tons of compostable materials that are collected separately by EverGreen ZeroWaste and are not included in the total weight of material disposed of by households. Nor, for that matter, does it take into account any of the leaves and other yard waste that are collected in town in summer and fall that otherwise might go into the trash. Schorzman noted that “the 25 to 30 [value] is at the low end of the reality” of waste diverted from the landfill, an observation corroborated by Goldsmith.
Both Schorzman and Goldsmith stressed that contamination of the recyclables is not a significant issue in Carbondale. Goldsmith said that plastic bags were the “main culprit” contaminating loads: “If you bag your recycling, like beverage cans, and put them in the bin, that’s contamination.” He mentioned that if a truckload is more than 20% contaminated, it will be diverted to the landfill, but that “we’ve never gotten to there.” The worst that has happened, he said, was that a handful of loads incurred extra fees for a much lower level of contamination.
On the topic of what becomes of the recycling, both men explained that trucks bring collected materials to the old Mid-Continent shed along County Road 100. There, it is offloaded and reloaded into trailers that take the materials to recycling processing centers along the Front Range.
Schorzman commented, “When you’re looking at things like the transport costs from here to the Front Range, the weight has a lot to do with it.” He noted that glass, “one of the heaviest, truly recyclable items,” constitutes much of that weight. He mulled the difficult ecological tradeoff between “haul[ing] this heavy load over two passes and burn[ing] the fuel that it takes to get there” versus leaving the glass here to be buried in the landfill (though, not advocating that). He lamented the fact that there is no processing facility for glass on the Western Slope.
On the question of what might be improved, Schorzman said that if residents understand better what is really recyclable, it would keep more materials out of trash that could be recycled and, conversely, keep materials out of recycling that ultimately will end up in the landfill. Goldsmith added, “We will continue with education on how to recycle right,” noting, “As long as we keep doing what we’re doing, the program will succeed.”
Recycling information is available on the Town of Carbondale website at www.carbondalegov.org/departments/utilities/trash.php and on Mountain Waste’s website at www.mountainwaste.com/services/residential/residential-recycling (including a link to a detailed, downloadable list of what can and cannot be recycled).