Thanks to recycling efforts, area residents are pitching in to divert about 1,000 tons of waste every year from the Montezuma County landfill.

Recycling efforts in Montezuma County were boosted in 2008 with the formation of the Four Corners Recycling Initiative (FCRI). Five years later, officials from the non-profit organization estimate that each of Montezuma County’s 25,000 or so residents, if all citizens participated, are tossing roughly 80 pounds of waste annually into recycling bins rather than garbage cans.

Partnered with the City of Cortez, Ute Indian Tribe and Montezuma School District, FCRI organizer Eric Freels said recycling efforts are diverting approximately four percent of the county’s overall waste from the landfill. But more could be done, he said, citing nearly a third of all household waste could ultimately be recycled.

“With a four percent diversion rate, we’re easily throwing away 20 percent of material that could be used to save virgin raw materials,” said Freels. “Those kind of statistics will not sustain society very much longer.”

To naysayers, Freels argues the cost of recycling is greatly outweighed by the cost associated with using virgin raw materials in producing everyday goods for the world’s population of roughly eight billion people.

“Sure, if the rest of the world were to live in poverty forever, then America could go on using virgin raw materials to produce its goods,” he said. “One single American is responsible for consuming the same amount of raw materials used by an entire family in a third world country. It’s simply not sustainable.”

FCRI was launched after some high school students wanted to be green, Freels said. A wildlife biologist for San Juan Public Lands, Freels works out of the Dolores Public Lands office, and when his office started recycling, the concerned high school students approached him about recycling at the school.

“Young people can and did make a difference,” Freels said.

With a $91,000 Recycling Resources Economic Opportunity grant from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, the FCRI was launched. The grant money was roughly split between two proposals. One included constructing a lean-to storage facility at the Montezuma County Landfill, which springboarded the City of Cortez to launch its cardboard recycling efforts. The other proposal paid to have recycling bins placed at schools across Montezuma County. The rest is history.

“Getting that first grant to expand opportunities for all of us was huge,” Freels said.

In its first year, FCRI diverted an average of 10.8 tons of waste per month from the local landfill. The cooperative program diverted more than 113 tons of recyclable commodities in its inaugural year of operation.

“As a community effort, everybody was behind the idea,” Freels said. “We got letters of support from the tribes, county commissioners, public lands, the towns, the schools; everyone supported us. That across the board buy-in is why it worked.”

Today, FCRI faces a problem, but the cloud has a silver lining. The issue for recycling in Montezuma County is over-utilization. The phenomenon occurs when recycling bins are full, forcing people to leave their recyclables outside of the collection bins.

“There’s more demand than our current infrastructure allows us to accommodate,” Freels said.

While a good problem to have, the solution is to empty the containers more often, but recycling is not a money-making endeavor. Transportation cost associated with emptying bins is barely offset by the revenue generated from recycling sales, Freels said.

According to an online FCRI survey, nearly a third of those polled said they recycle glass more than any other commodity, followed by aluminum cans, which were a close second at 28 percent. Approximately one in five polled said they recycle cardboard most, and less than 15 percent said newspapers topped their list of most recycled commodities.

Source generated vS. single stream

Paper. Bottles. Cans. There’s more to recycling than placing a green bin on the curb, said Montezuma County landfill director Debbie Barton. She explained someone has to sort these salvaged commodities before they can be traded on a global scale.

Boulder, she cited, spent $19 million to construct an automated single-stream recycling center. Prison labor is also brought in to help sort the paper, bottles and cans flowing in a single stream across a conveyor belt.

Barton, however, prefers a source-generated approach. She wants those bestowing their reusable refuse to sort it before stepping off the curb. Starting at the source, she said, saves time and money, lightens the industry’s carbon footprint and sustains competitive international markets.

“If you’re really serious about being green, then why not do it right from the start?” she asked. “It costs less when you do it right.”

Barton explained that single-stream recycling often leads to higher contamination rates. When fewer people have to physically sort recyclables, then higher efficiencies result, she said.

“With the single-stream approach, all you’ve done is made very nicely sorted trash,” she contends. “A lot of single-stream recyclables eventually ends up in the landfill.”

At the county landfill, Barton said diversion rates — the amount of material recycled instead of placed in the landfill — are small but growing. Records show the landfill collected more than 70,000 tons of debris from 2010 to 2012, and diverted nearly 3,000 tons of recycled materials over the same time span.

County diversion rates have grown over the last decade, from one percent in 2001 to 4.5 percent in 2011. The statistic mirrors city diversion rates as well.

According to Colby Earley, the city’s recycling materials coordinator, more than 747,000 pounds, or 373 tons, of cardboard, mixed paper, glass and aluminum were diverted from the landfill in 2010. That figure has steadily increased annually to more than 822,000 pounds, or 411 pounds, in 2012.

According to city records, cardboard represents more than half of all recycled materials collected annually over the last three years. Over the same time span, about a third of the city’s collection is mixed paper, followed by glass at roughly 12 percent. Aluminum cans represent about one percent of the city’s total collections.

The city has also experienced annual steady growth in the number of households requesting recycling bins. On average, Earley said, approximately 50 households join the city’s recycling program annually.

“Approximately one-third of the city’s residents actually have our green recycling bins,” Earley said. “On average, about 15 percent put the bin on the curb for us to pick up every week.”

In addition to residential curbside service, the city has also incorporated a commercial recycling initiative. Earley explained the city collects both mixed paper and cardboard directly from local businesses, which helps to extend the life of the county landfill.

“Our commercial recycling was set up to help our customers lower the volume of trash, and in doing so save them money on their sanitation expenses,” he said.

Earley cited the commercial program as an effective means to produce a “clean” recycled paper commodity. He explained that separate commercial recycling bins for cardboard and paper, a form of source generated recycling, helps the city to earn more from various processing facilities.

“Clean, source generated cardboard can fetch up to $200 a ton, compared to dirty, single stream cardboard, which can go as low as $30 per ton,” Earley said.

In the recycling industry, mills set the guidelines on the type and quantity of materials that will be received. Brokerage companies act on behalf of the mills to actually secure various commodities from private and public collection operations.

With single-stream collection, statistics show increases in both recycling participation and contamination, but for Early, the cons outweigh the pros until improved single-stream developments can be made.

“If you get an entire load rejected because it has high levels of contaminate, then that hurts,” Earley said.

Earley pointed to the recent Ride the Rockies event, where organizers only wanted to participate in a single stream recycling effort on their stop in Cortez. The event generated approximately 1,600 pounds of recycled goods locally, but the load was ultimately rejected due to high contaminate levels.

“Ride the Rockies was a prime example of how single-stream collections can fail,” Early said.

Earley said single-stream recycling leaves a bad taste in his mouth and said that source generated recycling is the area’s best approach, economically.

“Ninety-eight percent of what we ship out gets used in a secondary manner,” said Early. “We produce very clean, uncontaminated goods.”

What about plastics?

Without access to a major interstate or rail system, recycling plastics in Montezuma County is nearly impossible.

“Plastics are yucky,” said Barton.

Market restrictions and geographical location hamper local plastic recycling efforts. Barton said that shipping costs outweigh the returns for recycled plastic materials, but encouraged individuals to reuse plastic bottles if they are serious about sustainability.

“Buy things that are recyclable,” she said. “Reuse what you buy.”

Cardboard, mixed paper and mixed metals are the most sustainable recycling efforts for Montezuma County, said Freels. Recycling 39 types of plastic materials, all of which are petroleum-based products, simply isn’t feasible at this time, he said.

“At what point does it become a wash between transporting these materials across the country to what we’re trying to accomplish here?” he pondered. “If we’re burning tons of fossil fuels to get our recycled material to a facility where it can be reused, then are we truly reaching our goal?”

Barton, Freels and Early agree the best option for Montezuma County would be to have a private business step forward to offer a local value-added end use for plastic. Plastics, for example, could be chipped, melted and machine pressed into trail signs or lawn furniture.

“With us being in the Four Corners, it’s hard for us to get material out of here,” Early said.

Recycling goes digital

Recycling? There’s an app for that.

Information on Montezuma County recycling efforts, including where materials can be dropped off, is available on iRecycle. The Four Corners Recycling Initiative recently partnered with the smart phone app to provide area residents with a one-stop source for their recycling needs. The free smart phone app features 12 icons that users can launch to find the nearest recycling center.

“The smart phone app is great,” said Early. “A person can locate the nearest drop off site relative to their house.”

iRecycle is an accessible way to get people plugged into local recycling opportunities. iRecycle provides access to more than 1.5 million ways to recycle plus the latest in green news and ideas to match a person’s lifestyle. iRecycle can tell a user how, where and when to recycle just about anything. Using the user’s current location, zip code, address or city, iRecycle provides access to vital details for collection points, including website addresses, phone numbers, directions, hours of operation and other materials collected

tbaker@cortezjournal.com