Recycling is one of the easiest, most effective actions we can all take every day to reduce climate pollution, protect our environment, reduce litter, and create green jobs. Yet Colorado is one of the worst states when it comes to recycling. We recycle only 15%, less than half the national average. In Aurora and throughout most of Colorado, the lack of convenient recycling is not just an environmental challenge. The lack of access to convenient recycling is also an equity issue.
Our lives are cluttered with cans, bottles, boxes and myriad plastic packaging that seems to encase everything we purchase. While most of these materials could, and should, be recycled, recycling tends to be concentrated in more affluent communities. Across Colorado’s Front Range, for example, communities that ensure all of their residents have curbside recycling, either through a municipal contract or running their own waste trucks, have an average income nearly $50,000 higher than communities with limited recycling programs.
In contrast, with over 380,000 residents, Aurora is Colorado’s third largest city and one of its most diverse, with an expansive range of income levels and races including a significant population of foreign-born immigrants. The challenges we face in providing services mirror those felt by many Colorado communities. Due to the additional costs, Aurora residents don’t have convenient access to recycling and composting or other sustainability services. We lack curbside collections that more affluent Colorado cities often provide, and the City recently had to close our unstaffed recycling drop-off center due to dumping and contamination challenges.
Lack of access is even more inquitable for those living in apartment complexes. Nationally, less than 25% of multifamily residents have adequate onsite recycling programs, creating a significant barrier for recycling and a gross inequity between single-family and multifamily residents. This trend is true in Colorado, where multifamily properties are excluded from city recycling contracts and services. Aurora is among the 20-plus Colorado municipalities where multifamily properties make up more than 20% of residences, compounding our access challenges and equity gap.
While sustainability is an important value for our community, as a city government, we have to balance our spending with other pressing issues on public safety, roads, and community resources like libraries and parks. Colorado needs a better recycling system that does not put the burden on local governments to manage or provide recycling services.
So, how do we ensure that recycling becomes widespread, equitable and inclusive, where every resident has recycling that’s as convenient as trash service? Colorado needs a coordinated, statewide recycling system supported by a long-term, sustainable funding mechanism. The answer is a transformative policy called “Producer Responsibility,” which is currently being considered by Colorado legislators as well as by a number of other state legislatures around the country.
Under a statewide Producer Responsibility program, the companies that sell containers, packaging, paper, and food serviceware would be required to pay for a statewide recycling system to recycle their products. All residents would have recycling at no charge and we would establish a uniform statewide list of what can be recycled. Having producers pay for their own packaging incentivizes them to produce less of it in the first place. It also creates a more accessible and efficient system to collect and process recyclable materials statewide so they can be used to create jobs and new products here in Colorado closer to home.
My constituents in Aurora care deeply about their community, the environment, and creating jobs. I urge state leaders to join me in supporting Producer Responsibility as a forward-looking solution that will make recycling more equitable, inclusive, and effective—for my city and all of Colorado. Show your support at www.recyclingforallcoloradans.org.
Now if Alison Coombs would just stick to moving trash around, we wouldn’t have to listen to her socialist agenda.
I implore the my neighbors in Ward V to watch her closely this year, then vote her away from Council in the next election.
I suppose, I’ll keep commenting and David Perry and his staff will keep eliminating my comments. Then beg for money. I can’t believe I’m the only one being censored.
Hi, Dick! No comments of yours have been removed or unapproved by Sentinel staff that we can see on our end. Make sure you are hitting the “post comment” button to ensure your comments are submitted! Have a great day!