The Sopris Sun recently received an anonymous news tip from a resident in the Valley expressing concern about a local business failing to separate its recycling. The tipster wanted to know: what are the regulations around commercial recycling in Carbondale?
The Sopris Sun spoke with Kevin Schorzman, the Town’s public works director, to get some answers. Schorzman is currently serving as the interim town manager before Ryan Hyland assumes the position on Aug. 4. As public works director, Schorzman’s responsibilities include overseeing streets, trees, water, wastewater, trash and recycling.
While residential recycling in Carbondale is overseen by Mountain Waste & Recycling every other Tuesday, Schorzman made clear that commercial and multi-family properties fall outside the scope of Town control. “We cannot regulate commercial properties like we do [residential],” he said. “We can’t force them to use one hauler.”
As a result, recycling services for businesses and large apartment complexes (those with eight or more units) are handled by a variety of private companies. “The main ones are Mountain Waste & Recycling, Waste Management and Valley Waste Solutions,” said Schorzman.
This decentralized system means there is currently no Town-wide mandate for businesses to recycle. While Schorzman did not rule out the possibility of future legislation being established, he confirmed that the regulation does not presently exist.
Currently, there are no formal incentives or penalties in place for business recycling, either. Instead, the choice to recycle appears to rely largely on ethics. “I think it’s more of a sense of what’s right,” said Schorzman. “I’ve noticed in this community that people are very in tune with that, whether it’s residents or businesses.”
If Carbondale were to pursue recycling mandates for commercial properties, the process would begin with the Board of Trustees. “The first thing would be that the Board of Trustees would get presented with a proposed change to the municipal code,” said Schorzman. “They’d look at it, talk about it.” Schorzman said that one of the biggest aspects of passing such regulations for businesses would be the implementation of incentives and penalties.
For residential properties, the Town’s single-hauler and automatic service system is designed to make recycling easy and accessible. “The price that people pay for the different levels of service includes recycling containers,” Schorzman said. “They can’t call up and say, ‘I don’t want to recycle, I want $10 off my bill.’ Their bill is the same regardless.”
While residents are not required to participate in recycling, they are automatically provided with the tools to do so. Though the Town does not monitor individual recycling behaviors, Schorzman confirmed that everyone in the residential program “has access to it.”
For further insight into the current recycling habits of local businesses, Schorzman suggested reaching out directly to the commercial waste haulers operating in Carbondale. The Sopris Sun reached out to multiple recycling companies that operate in the Valley but didn’t receive a response.
To find more detailed information on Carbondale’s current waste and recycling laws, Schorzman recommends looking at the municipal code. The code can be found on Carbondalegov.org under the dropdown titled “I want to.” In the “learn about” section there is a subsection titled “Municipal Code.” Once on the municipal code, navigate to chapter seven, section three for information about garbage and refuse.