The Recycling Partnership and Denver launch pilot recycling program

Over the next three months, The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, will work with Denver Public Works to increase the city’s recycling rate. Denver Recycles, a program of Denver Public Works Solid Waste Management, provides every-other-week recycling collection and limited-access weekly composting collection to single-family homes (seven or fewer units) within the city and County of Denver. The city’s residential recycling program already outperforms the national average in terms of quality of material collected, but there is more material to be recovered, according to the partners.

The goal of the pilot is to find the best way to increase the amount of recyclables residents put in their purple carts, starting with a focus on aluminum and steel cans. Together with Denver Public Works, The Recycling Partnership will implement an education program on four pilot routes. On-the-ground recycling experts will tag trash carts with an information card that instructs residents to put cans in their recycling carts. Residents also will receive the message through mailers, signs and social media. Success will be measured by the escalation in the number of steel and aluminum cans recovered on the pilot routes.

 “We plan to use this project to help increase our citywide recycling rate from 20 percent to our 2020 goal of 34 percent,” says Charlotte Pitt, manager, Denver Solid Waste Management. “This will not only benefit our residents and our environment, but keeping recyclable material out of the landfill will also save at least $1 million in landfill fees.”

“We are excited to be working with the committed residents and city officials in Denver,” says Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership. “The standard of residential service is already excellent, but there’s always room for improvement. Success in boosting Denver’s recycling performance will not only help locally, it will provide communities across America with the tools and proof points they need to make the most of their programs.”

A number of The Recycling Partnership’s 30 funding partners have a strong presence in Colorado and are committed to making the most of local recycling, the nonprofit says.

“Corporations are increasingly interested in achieving far-reaching sustainability goals, and recycling is a direct path to healthier communities, more jobs and climate action,” says Harrison. “Companies with a local presence, like Ball Corp., Anheuser Busch, and DanoneWave, are dedicated to directly supporting recycling in Denver while also building the circular economy.”

The Recycling Partnership engages the recycling supply chain—from the corporations that manufacture products and packaging to local government charged with recycling to industry end markets, haulers, material recovery facilities and converters. Between 2015 and today, The Recycling Partnership says it has assisted more than 420 communities with tools, resources and technical support. It has provided 400,000 recycling carts, reached 17 million households and helped companies invest more than $27 million in recycling infrastructure.