Mandatory commercial recycling ordinance tabled until February as Steamboat Council asks for more public input

After some debate, Steamboat Springs City Council members decided they needed more input from the community before voting on an ordinance that would make commercial recycling mandatory in Steamboat Springs.

On Tuesday, December 6, the city council voted 4-3 to table the recycling ordinance by its February 7 meeting, with council members saying they hoped to be in touch with the community by then.

“Personally, the proposal is acceptable to me,” City Council President Robin Crossan told city officials. “I would like to have more public input if it is feasible. And when you come back and say, ‘We tried three more times to get public input and no one showed up,’ then the due diligence was complete.”

As a result, the city will host three open houses in January to update the public on the details of the ordinance. The open days will take place on January 5th at 12pm, on January 24th at 6pm and on January 26th at 2pm in the Centennial Hall on January 10th^th Street.

“The cost of transporting recycling, the cost of sorting recyclables, the concerns about glass, none of these things will be addressed until February,” Councilor Joella West said.

“Commercial recycling” refers to large capacity containers – or dumpsters – and includes businesses and apartment buildings. The mandate would require multi-family and commercial properties to have a recycling bin with at least 50% the capacity of their bin. If transposed, the directive would be phased in over a period of three years. Curbside collection of recyclables is already mandated by the city.

If the ordinance were passed, the ordinance would also make commercial companies pay for recycling services, but since the state passed the Extended Producer Responsibility Act, which requires companies that manufacture and sell products in Colorado to pay for their product packaging to be recycled, these costs could soon be compensated. The state has told the city that Steamboat could receive funding through 2026, though many details of the program are still being worked out.

According to the 2020 Steamboat Springs Community Survey, 94% of residents support the multifamily recycling requirement and 72% strongly support it.

The recommendation to commission commercial recycling goes back to the city’s recycling study published in January.

This study points to Aspen, Boulder, Fort Collins, Vail and Pitkin Counties, all of which have mandated commercial recycling and have diversion rates of 29% or more.

The city’s diversion rate reflects the percentage of waste that is diverted from the landfill. In 2018, the diversion rate in Routt County was 23%. However, the diversion rate at Steamboat Springs is estimated at 9%.

“We have one of the lowest recycling rates in Colorado,” said Winn Cowman, director of waste diversion at the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council.

One of the goals of Routt County’s climate action plan is to increase the county’s diversion rate to 46% by 2030 and 85% by 2050. However, there is some skepticism that the Steamboat Springs commercial recycling requirement is feasible.

“If we lived in Denver and another community that had these (material recycling facilities) much closer, had some availabilities with different locations, I could be sold a lot easier,” Councilor Michael Buccino said. “But we live on an island in the mountains.”

The transportation of recyclables, particularly glass, is also a concern for employees at Twin Enviro Services, a provider of waste transportation, disposal and recycling services in Routt and Moffat counties. In addition to the economics of recycling, there is also the question of how much it can help the environment if materials have to be transported over long distances.

“No recycler pays to take glass,” said Les Liman, the owner of Twin Enviro. “And when you look at the fact that it’s so heavy, and you put it in a truck and ship it, it just burns a lot of fuel. There is a huge carbon footprint.”

He sees composting and aluminum as feasible for recycling, but Liman said glass often breaks during transport, contaminating the rest of the cargo. He said his company is ready and able to handle the influx of commercial recycling the mandate would bring, but he believes glass should be processed separately through local drop-offs.

Twin Enviro’s request to remove glass from the city’s only curbside stream of recyclables was one of the original motivations for the city’s recycling study. While the study acknowledges that removing glass could save up to $11,500 in costs per year, it still recommends leaving glass in a single stream.

The study defends its recommendation, noting that Steamboat’s lack of glass drop-off points would make it more difficult for local residents to recycle glass. Additionally, in places like Summit County and Durango, where glass is separated, diversion rates are low, and these communities’ efforts come with complicated public relations and additional glass management costs.

Still others see transporting glass as more sustainable than not recycling it.

“Glass can be shipped up to 1,150 miles before the greenhouse gas benefits of recycling are lost,” said Winn Cowman, waste diversion director for the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council.

According to the Recycling Study, about 70% of residents recycle, while waste haulers report that about 50% of multi-family and commercial waste producers recycle themselves. But according to the study, many companies only recycle cardboard.

The study states that about half of the recyclables the city generates are commercial, but it’s also unrealistic to think that a mandate would bring all of those recyclables into the herd.

Winnie DelliQuadri, the city’s manager of special projects and interstate services, said the policy would provide a “robust waiver process” to accommodate specific hardships, such as: B. A property that does not have space for an additional recycling container.

She said downtown is the most difficult area to reconcile, although city officials are looking to develop recycling sites on city property that businesses can share.

Council members Buccino, Crossan, Heather Sloop and Ed Briones supported the discussion submission through February. Buccino was the only one to speak out directly against the ordinance, while the other three said they wanted more public input.

“I’m not against recycling at all,” Buccino said. “I just think I’m against the recycling mandate.”

Councilors West, Gail Garey and Dakotah McGinlay voted against postponing the regulation and said they were ready to support it at first reading.

To reach Spencer Powell, call 970-871-4229 or email him at [email protected]