By Jeremy Heiman
Carbondale and other governments in Garfield, Pitkin and Eagle counties are partnering in preliminary studies that may eventually result in a regional program to sort, market and ship recyclable materials.
The one-year effort to find ways to divert material from the four local landfills is supported by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Ron Rasnic, Eagle County solid waste and recycling manager.
The grant program started in August. The specific tasks funded by the grant are:
• developing strategies for regional collaboration in diverting materials from landfills;
• studying the composition of waste at the Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin county landfills and the South Canyon Landfill operated by Glenwood Springs;
• tracking local recycling — finding out what currently gets picked up and where it goes;
• conducting a survey of the public to gauge people’s willingness to recycle;
• conducting research on what can be done with problem materials, such as demolition and construction waste, tires, textiles, and waste from the oil and gas drilling industry;
• visiting facilities that receive and process electronic waste, compostable material and recyclables to learn how these are handled;
• developing an educational program on recycling for local schools and a regional educational Web site on the subject;
• a wrapup, which will address the possibilities for continuing the work after the grant project is complete.
Rasnic said the partners are the three counties, Aspen, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Vail and the Eagle Valley Alliance for Sustainability.
Carbondale Assistant Public Works Director Ellie Kennedy, who is representing Carbondale in the project, said Carbondale would participate fully in the grant program.
Kennedy said her department will be collecting information from the trash haulers who serve Carbondale as to the volume of recycling they handle, and will be determining how much material is collected weekly at the Patagonia recycling cans around town. She will also be assembling information on the quantity of leaves collected in Carbondale and the amount of compostable material deposited in Green Team containers at Mountain Fair annually.
The town will also make an effort to find out where tires go after they are removed from vehicles at local dealers.
Carbondale residents will be surveyed in the near future on their recycling attitudes, Kennedy said, possibly in connection with utility bills. She is also on the committee that will develop a recycling education program.
Kennedy said the work under the grant will generally allow the partners to understand the region’s recycling strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a plan for the future. She said the intention is to take the information to policy makers in local government and find out how they want to move forward.
Chris Hoofnagle, solid waste coordinator for Pitkin County, agrees the information will be valuable.
“It’s a great opportunity to gather some information,” Hoofnagle said. But he said the partners haven’t yet embarked on a plan for a regional recycling effort to put the new information to work.
“What we do from there is the next project,” Hoofnagle said.
Eagle County is currently building a 40,000-square-foot building at the Eagle County landfill that will serve as a recyclable materials recovery facility, Rasnic said. County staff will sort, process and bale recyclables and market them from the building.
Rasnic said he expects the building to be completed by the end of the year.
The building was funded strictly by Eagle County, and is not related to the grant. Rasnic said it is possible the partnership will arrange to bring all recyclables to Eagle as a central shipping point.
“We need to find the most cost-effective way for that to happen,” Rasnic said.
Once the studies are completed and the grant money expended, more money must be found to support a regional recycling program, if it is to become a reality.
“The thing one has to keep in mind,” Rasnic said, “recyclables have to be transported, and that takes money.”
The market for recyclables fluctuates, and often materials cannot be sold profitably, so recycling, at least in current market conditions, is not self-supporting. Rasnic said currently most of the markets have recovered somewhat from a low a couple months ago, but the market for plastics numbered 3 through 7 has not rebounded.
The Eagle County center won’t have room to store recyclable materials to wait for higher market prices, Rasnic said.
“It’s not the point to store things,” Rasnic said. “The whole point is to get it in the front door and out the back door.”

Carbondale reworking trash ordinances

To reduce the risk of bear incidents, the Carbondale  Board of Trustees passed a ruling on Oct. 6 prohibiting residents from putting trashcans out overnight.  
The emergency ordinance is effective immediately and allows trash containers on residential streets only between
6 a.m. and 8 p.m. on the morning of pickup.
The town is also looking at major changes to the town code regarding trash pickup and recycling.
Public Works Director Larry Ballenger approached the Board of Trustees Sept. 29 with a proposal to change the billing structure for trash and recycling pickup to discourage sending trash to the landfill and encourage recycling.
If this new rate structure is adopted, recycling pickup would be part of the base rate, and customers would be billed by volume for the amount of trash they put out. So the more material diverted from trash to recycling, the lower the bill. Commercial and residential customers would be affected equally.
The trustees directed Ballenger and the Carbondale Environmental Board to meet with the trash haulers to try to work out a rate structure.