Boulder's path to creating 'zero waste'

The goal was to reach 60 percent recycling by December 2007, 70 percent by December 2012 and 85 percent by December 2017 using the master plan as a roadmap.

Shireen Miller, waste reduction coordinator for the city's environmental affairs office, said the initial goal of 60 percent relies on single-stream recycling, which is coming later this month to Boulder.

The next initiative to further reduce the waste stream, she said, is addressing ‘‘organics” for composting, including food and yard waste. Residents are welcome to do their own backyard composting with the city and county partnering on workshops and bin sales to encourage the practice.

Miller said the city has hit a unique hang-up in its quest to require residents to include composting containers next to their recycling and trash containers for curbside collection.

‘‘Our [state] division of wildlife is concerned about bears,” she said. ‘‘The issue is that the cost of bear-resistant containers is much higher than the ones we've been using, and they may not solve the problem if bears come into town to find easy calories from other attractants such as fruit trees, pet food, etc.“

A proposed ordinance would require trash collectors operating within the city limits to include 32 gallons of compost collection service during bi-weekly pickups.

A city ordinance requires all trash haulers hired by residents in Boulder to provide customers with unlimited recycling collection and to charge volume-based trash rates.

City residents pay a monthly ‘‘trash tax” of $1.10 for 32 gallons, $2.50 for 64 gallons, and $3.50 for 96 gallons of trash service. Businesses pay 74 cents per cubic yard for waste disposal.

Bins are usually provided by haulers, but some smaller haulers let customers use their own.

Haulers collect the tax as part of their regular billing and the money is returned to the city for use for waste reduction programs, ranging from spring and fall yard waste programs to educational programs in schools.

The unlimited recycling, Miller said, hopefully encourages residents to recycle at a greater rate.

‘‘If I recycle, there is less trash and that means less of a trash tax [I pay],'” she said.

The city is considering curbside composting, but providing it on an unlimited basis is difficult for haulers, Miller said, because of the cost required to process the collected materials.

A pair of pilot programs to test curbside compost collection, one in 2005 and another in 2006, increased waste diversion rates to 69 percent and 55 percent respectively, showing Miller and others the true impact composting can make.

‘‘The testing shows that food and yard waste is a big component,” she said. ‘‘If we get that out of the waste stream, we can get to [the waste diversion goals in the master plan].”

Officials in Boulder County are also working toward increasing composting as a key component to their zero waste pledge made nearly a year earlier than the City of Boulder.

In May 2005, Boulder County Commissioners enacted a resolution to adopt zero waste initiatives to deal with the estimated 300,000 tons of waste generated by residents, businesses and other institutions, 75 percent of which was sent to a landfill.

The goal is to get to 50 percent diversion by 2010 and achieve zero waste or ‘‘darn near” by 2025.

Boulder County oversees 11 municipalities and another 50,000 unincorporated residents. Its Resource Conservation Division licenses waste haulers providing services within the county, operates two transfer stations and four drop off-recycling centers.

Other services for residents include management of a yard waste drop-off site, slash⁄wood collection and wood chipping reimbursement programs for selected communities.

Money from the county's general fund, accumulated through property taxes, helps to fund the initiatives as does a recycling center enterprise fund, which goes towards everything from operating the centers to education and outreach.

Jeff Callahan, the division's manager, said that in 2007, the county made $5 million in the sale of recyclable materials, such as aluminum. The county paid Eco-Cycle $2.5 million to operate the facility, paid haulers $1.3 million for the delivery of materials to the county facility, used $600,000 for staff of the enterprise fund and programs, and returned $500,000 to a ‘‘recycling tax fund” for future programs.

The enterprise account was created through a seven-year tax fund approved by residents that raised $23 million, with $14 million used to build facilities. Five million from a ‘‘recycling tax fund” created by the same resident-approved tax stream went to convert operations with technology for single stream recycling.

This month, the city is preparing to roll out its single stream recycling, merging two existing bins for paper and commingled containers into one that can be separated at the Boulder County Recycling Center. ‘‘Flats,” like paper, are separated from ‘‘rounds,” like containers by the machinery.

The county adopted an ordinance in December requiring volume-based disposal, unlimited single stream recycling for all waste collection customers and curbside collection of organics. The implementation will be phased in by the hauling community over the summer.

Boulder County was honored by Eco-Cycle for its commitment to zero waste in April for its ‘‘Zero Waste Pilot Program.”

The county created a color-coded, three-bin waste collection center for mixed recyclables, composting and trash. Through education and outreach with county staff, use of the bins was stressed at individual desks, break rooms, public areas and even restrooms.

The pilot will be phased into all county buildings later this year with all county buildings practicing zero waste by 2009.