Sorting and Collecting 101
By Allison Tonini
What's that frog talking about? It is so easy being green—at least in Steamboat Springs. No wonder either; for a place to be as naturally breathtaking as the Yampa Valley, somebody must be working hard to preserve the beauty. With nearly everything from soda cans and pizza boxes to kitchen sinks and windows from demolition sites being recycled and reused around Routt County, half the battle is knowing who offers which collection services. A handful of companies around the county work to ensure our community stays as green as Mt. Werner in the middle of July. These companies differ not only in what they collect, but from whom they collect it, and how they eventually process the materials.
Waste Management is the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America. “When people hear Waste Management they usually just think about waste, but our company is currently the nation's leader in recycling,” says Tiffiany Moerhing, the Public Relations manager for Colorado and Wyoming. Almost twenty years ago, Waste Management established WM Recycle America, a branch of the company completely dedicated to recycling and sustainability. WM Recycle America has made a tremendous effort to work towards a more successful outcome for everyone involved in the recycling process. The group is equipped with service specialists and industry experts to create and evolve affordable and effective recycling programs. One of Waste Management's major breakthroughs in the industry has been single stream recycling, launched in 2001. By collecting all recyclable material in a single bin, no sorting by the customer required, they have been able to recover up to three times as much as before. Single stream recycling is affordable, more efficient for collection trucks, and convenient for households and businesses. Waste Management offers several recycling services in Routt County, including residential curbside pick-up, free drop off at their site on Downhill Drive, E-cycling, business roll-off containers and compactors, reuse of demolition and construction material, and the transport of the Green Machines around town. Last year, Waste Management collected 2,442 tons of single stream recycling in the Yampa Valley. Routt County customers also helped save 19,000 mature trees by recycling 168 tons of paper and 680 tons of corrugated cardboard through Waste Management. Materials recycled through Waste Management in Routt County are first sorted at the Steamboat Springs site, and then taken to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Denver, one of 109 nationwide. Once the recycled material is unloaded at the facility, it travels along a series of conveyor belts where it is sorted both manually and by high-tech machines. After the materials are sorted, they are bundled and prepared for shipping by train or by truck to many different plants around the country. “Waste Management has very high standards when it comes to being ethical in recycling,” Moerhing says. “Our recyclables are always used for what they were intended for.”
Old West Sanitation originally started in Moffat County in November of 2001, offering waste and recycling services. It wasn't until they received requests from customers in Routt County, that owner Benjie Berg decided to expand. “We were getting an overwhelming response to do residential pick-up in Steamboat,” said Berg. The small, locally-owned company now operates in both counties, focusing on curbside residential multi-stream collection. “Because we're smaller and local, we can tailor our programs to suit the needs of Routt and Moffat County,” Berg says. “We operate locally, instead of having a blanket program for places not pertaining to us.” The company asks customers to sort their recycling into three separate bins: bin one for all paper; bin two carries tin, aluminum, steel, and #1 and #2 plastics; bin three takes all glass. Old West will also pick up corrugated cardboard if it's set aside. Last year alone, Old West collected 72 tons of paper, 36 tons of metals and plastics, 84 tons of glass, and 15 tons of cardboard. Once the recycled material is collected, it's then sent down to the Grand Junction sorting facility called Curbside Recycling Indefinitely, Inc.. The president and general manager of this facility, Steve Foss, originally got into the recycling business through volunteering his services. Foss started volunteering one Saturday a month to conduct waste diversion studies with a city worker. “We started out with an old Volkswagen truck and a thirty-pound meat scale I'd bought for $15,” recalls Foss. But once people heard they were doing curbside recycling, the program started to grow. “We went from going in once a month, to every Saturday, to every Saturday and Sunday, and then every day,” says Foss. Finally, the guys proposed that the city implement a curbside recycling program, run by them. The city agreed, and the grassroots movement was turned into Curbside Recycling Indefinitely. Curbside Recycling takes multi-stream recyclables and manually processes them to insure that the materials aren't contaminated. Multi-stream recycling yields a more unadulterated product. A study by the Container Recycling Institute in December 2009, concluded that on average, only ten-percent of glass from multi-stream collection systems winds up in landfills compared to up to forty-percent of glass from single stream collection. Although multi-stream recycling isn't as cost or time efficient for the processor, it doesn't cost the customer any extra. Sorted recyclables are more marketable because they run little to no risk of contamination that can ruin machines, make materials unusable to buyers, or be dangerous to sorters.
The company Twin Enviro was originally founded in 1971 as Downhill Pickup by Les A. Liman. Twin Enviro is significant to the Yampa Valley because it is the only municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill in all of Routt County. Dave Epstein, the Vice President and General Manager of Twin Enviro, says that the main order of business for the company is taking care of the environment. And that responsibility shows. Twin Enviro is the only provider in Routt County to offer asbestos collection and disposal. They are also the only waste provider in the Yampa Valley to sell local compost, Twin Gro, made from organic materials. As far as services, Twin Enviro offers roll-off containers to both commercial businesses and construction companies. Epstein says that Twin Enviro is currently recycling cardboard, batteries, tires, metal, wood waste, televisions, and computers from commercial businesses, but looking into glass in the future. At construction sites, Twin Enviro encourages de-construction of buildings, rather than demolition, so that everything from doors to appliances can be reused. Home ReSource, once Epstein's dream, is now a thriving non-profit business that sells salvaged materials from construction sites, refurbished bikes, and much more. When the roll-off containers are full, Twin Enviro will recycle what can be recycled at various facilities, reuse materials that are in good condition at their Home ReSource center, and take the rest to their fully-lined, permitted, and engineered, MSW landfill. Twin Enviro handles an impressive 200,000 plus cubic yards of waste annually. Because it is the only MSW landfill in Routt County, Epstein says that the other waste companies in the Yampa Valley, Waste Management, Old West Sanitation, and Aces High, are all customers of Twin Enviro.
Steve Weinland, a resident of Steamboat Springs for twenty-eight years, started Aces High after working for Waste Management for several years. His company is dedicated to good service and supporting the local economy. “We're a local company,” says Luke Tellier, the sales and marketing director for Aces High. “Every penny you spend with us circulates around the community seven times before leaving the Yampa Valley.” Aces High collects cardboard and single stream recyclable material from commercial businesses, as well as “whatever the customer's needs are” in construction recycling says Tellier. Weinland, the owner of Aces High, estimates that on average they collect 30 tons of single stream recyclables and 150 tons of cardboard a year. The material collected in Routt County by Aces High is taken by truck every couple months to a material recovery facility in Denver. Although there is currently no residential collection, Aces High plans on expanding someday. “We don't have the facility, but that's the direction the company is headed in,” says Tellier. But it doesn't end there. Driven by the passion to give future generations the same clean environment that he has experienced in the Yampa Valley during his lifetime, Tellier stands on his word, “If it's recyclable in the Yampa Valley, we can help find a place for it. If we can't do it, we'll point you in the right direction.”
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