A recently conducted trash audit of five Southwest Colorado counties showed the region is drastically lagging diversion rates of recycled materials compared with the state and the country.
Last year, the combined counties – Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan – disposed 86 percent of their total waste into a landfill, and only 13 percent was recycled.
Compare that with the 78 percent disposal rate in Colorado, and the even lower 66 percent rate across the country, and Miriam Gillow-Wiles, executive director for Southwest Colorado Council of Governments, said it’s plain to see the region has a problem.
“We are way behind from the rest of the state and country,” Gillow-Wiles said. “If we keep throwing away things at the 86 percent rate we have now, then what do we do when we fill up our landfills?”
Gillow-Wiles spoke at Wednesday’s Green Business Roundtable, organized by the San Juan Citizen’s Alliance, to a full crowd at the Henry Strater Theatre, despite predictions of the season’s first snowfall.
But Gillow-Wiles’s presentation of last year’s trash audit painted a dire outlook on the region’s handling of waste. The yearlong study showed residents in Southwest Colorado continually throw away materials that could easily be recycled.
“We have a lot of things recyclable going into our waste stream,” said Gillow-Wiles, adding those materials include anything from clothing to shoes to food waste.
Southwest Colorado’s issues with recycling are not unique. Every region struggles with lack of policy incentives, long hauls to the dump, as well as the high cost of processing measured up against low returns.
But throughout the region, policies vary across county lines, and that causes confusion for residents. La Plata County offers government recycling and green purchasing, but Montezuma County has no diversion standards. The city of Durango has the most robust system, diverting 32 percent of its waste.
“It’s disappointing we’re not recycling more,” La Plata County Commissioner Gwen Lachelt said. “I hope that efforts to focus on education can help lead to some solutions. But it makes sense to have a regional approach to recycling because it’s a really expensive program for a county to take on by itself.”
The problem, Gillow-Wiles said, is to some degree the region’s fault, and at other times uncontrollable, outside market forces. It’s very cheap to just dump in a landfill, and it’s very expensive to divert recyclable material. And to make matters worse, there are not many funding incentives for companies to take it upon themselves to responsibly manage refuse.
Plus, the region is generating a lot of waste. The combined population of the five counties – estimated at 99,000 – creates 5.9 pounds per capita per day, which is a lot of trash, Gillow-Wiles said. Most of that comes from La Plata, which has the largest population. But Dolores, which only has 16,000 residents, accounts for 25 percent of the total waste.
For now, the region’s council of governments focus will be to educate the community. Durango City Councilor Sweetie Marbury, said the city gives a discount to businesses that recycle, yet she has seen countless shops and restaurants not take advantage.
“I’m amazed at how many businesses don’t do that,” she said. “I just get ill from that cause I know (recyclables are) going to the landfill.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
