Pitkin County outlines 50% waste-diversion goal, plans to expand composting and cardboard bans

Pitkin County solid waste staff on Jan. 28 presented a county-produced waste diversion plan that sets a target of diverting 50% of municipal solid waste by 2030 and 75% by 2040.

The plan, presented by Kathy Hall, Pitkin County solid waste director, and Cameron Garcia, solid waste diversion analyst, uses a 2022 baseline waste sort and recommends five initial actions the county says are achievable: a cardboard landfill ban, expanded food-waste collection, enhanced outreach and education, audits of county buildings for waste reduction and creation of a regional waste coalition with nearby municipalities and stakeholders.

Why it matters: staff said organics are the largest remaining component of trash going to the landfill and therefore the largest opportunity to reduce methane emissions and landfill volume. The plan ties directly to the county’s climate-action work and includes numerical estimates of greenhouse-gas impacts and the value of materials currently lost to landfill.

Most important findings and targets - Baseline and targets: staff used a 2022 waste sort as the baseline and plan to repeat the sort every five years. The plan’s headline targets are 50% diversion by 2030 and 75% diversion of municipal solid waste (MSW) by 2040. - Current diversion: Hall told commissioners the county’s diversion rate was about 42% through 2023 (staff had not yet finalized 2024 figures at the meeting). Composting and reuse programs are the program backbone; the county reported record compost volumes and a range of reuse/diversion programs. - Organics and emissions: the 2022 waste sort showed about 50% of what is placed in the trash was organics; staff said most could be composted. Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WARM model, staff estimated the landfill waste in 2022 produced about 26,000 tons of CO2-equivalent — roughly equal to adding 6,000 gasoline-powered vehicles to the road for a year or about 2,925,600 gallons of gasoline consumed annually. - Lost commodity value: staff estimated about $649,000 worth of recyclable commodities were landfilled in 2022, based on the value those materials would have realized if recovered and sold as commodities.

Key programs and proposals - Composting: the county operates a year-round compost and soils program. Hall said the county composted a record ~16,000 tons (up from ~14,500 tons the prior year). Staff called food waste diversion “low-hanging fruit,” noting about 5,500 tons of food waste still went to the landfill annually while the county captured about 1,900 tons this year. - Single-stream recycling and markets: Pitkin County currently collects single-stream recycling and hauls it to Denver for sorting. Staff welcomed a recently announced single-stream materials recovery facility (MRF) in Grand Junction as a way to reduce haul costs and greenhouse-gas emissions. - Unique-diversion items and reuse: county programs include mattress recycling (staff said they handled a record number of mattresses in 2024), a textiles and reuse retail outlet known in the presentation as the Motherlode Mercantile, a book-reuse arrangement with Eco-Cycle/Boulder that funds low-income reading programs, and a plastic-film collection that sends film to a Pueblo recycler to be made into asphalt additives. Hall said an estimated 2,500 tons of plastic film still go to landfill annually in the county. - Construction and demolition (C&D): staff highlighted a county C&D diversion program and ordinance that local contractors and a similar Aspen ordinance have adopted; Hall proposed rebranding that program as “Sustainable Sites” to encourage broader sustainability practices on construction projects beyond waste diversion.

Five initial initiatives: staff recommended an early package of actions to reach the 50% goal. These were (1) a cardboard landfill ban, (2) expanding food-waste collection (including building on Aspen’s phased business ban), (3) enhanced outreach and education including school curriculum work, (4) county facility audits to reduce waste in county operations, and (5) developing a regional waste coalition to coordinate municipalities, haulers and landfills.

Operational and equity notes - Implementation considerations: commissioners and staff discussed collection logistics and contamination risk for composting and recycling programs, differences between commercial and residential collection, bear-proofing requirements in some neighborhoods and concerns about mandating residential participation. - Cost and in-house approach: staff said the diversion plan was drafted in-house rather than by a consultant, which they estimated saved the county $50,000–$75,000 and produced a usable, living document rather than a shelf report.

Next steps and reporting Hall and Garcia said staff will report progress annually, pursue the five initial initiatives and pursue outreach, regional coordination and possible policy changes such as event- and festival-specific recycling requirements in unincorporated Pitkin County. Commissioners asked staff to provide more detail on collection logistics, cost implications and milestones for the 2030 and 2040 targets.

Ending: The county expects to return to the board with annual updates on program progress and to sequence near-term policy choices (for example, a cardboard ban and targeted commercial food-waste rules) while pursuing longer-term goals such as regional coalitions and school curricula.