The Hope of Boulder by Karin Tome
After spending four days in Boulder, Colorado on the Zero Waste Field Trip, I'm glad to say that I have hope for Frederick County, in terms of cutting down on the amount of "trash" we produce so that we DO NOT feel the need to build a waste-to-energy plant (incinerator.) Boulder showed us that moving toward Zero Waste is a community solution and must be met with cooperative partnerships between government, business (especially the haulers) and citizens. They showed us that if we're willing to invest in the primary set-up of the systems, our citizens will be more likely to participate in "doing the right thing." Something as simple as placing 3 containers (co-mingled cans/bottles, paper, trash) where people normally see just 1 (trash,) will help us to increase our diversion rate dramatically. Other types of incentives that are employed there include single-stream recycling, variable rate programs (Pay-as-you-throw; you gain control of your trash bill because you only pay for the amount of trash you discard,) convenient drop-off locations for hard-to-recycle-materials, and governmental ordinances such as requiring builders to recycle or reuse 50% of their materials instead of landfilling them.
Boulder City and Boulder County officials have invested strongly in the principles of Zero-Waste: a true increase in the diversion of resources from their waste stream, including composting, encouraging manufacturer-responsibility, reuse, AND aggressive and focused recycling.
As with any type of solid waste solution, it will require a financial commitment on our part and the political will of our officials. We need our leaders (State, County, and Municipal) as well as our solid waste haulers and citizens to work together to come up with a better plan. I'll continue to expect our leaders to keep an open-mind and look clearly at the alternatives.
One thought that was fixed in our minds throughout this field trip was this:
Zero-Waste is a journey, not a destination. Boulder has shown us that there's hope for Frederick County to solve our solid waste problems as a community working together.
Our "Agenda"
On June 9th and 10th, 2008, several elected officials (2 Frederick County Commissioners and 2 City of Frederick officials), a member of the SWAC, a county staff member, 2 local reporters, 2 representatives from the State of Colorado, 2 individual citizens, 1 project director for a LEED consulting firm, and a Montana Nature Conservancy staff member accompanied Caroline Eader throughout beautiful Boulder, Colorado to enjoy two informative days of Zero-Waste philosophy and every-day practice.
Our 2-day trip included the following:
- Lodging at the"Zero-Waste Boulder Outlook Hotel
- Discussion about Eco-Products at the Boulder County Recyling Center
- Tour of Recycling Center with Eric Lombardi of Eco-Cycle and discussion of single stream recycling, processing issues, and economics/market prices of recycling
- Tour of CHaRM (Center for Hard to Recycle Materials) with Eric Lombardi and discussion about building an alternative to an incinerator (Resource Recovery Park)
- Lunch at the Zero-Waste Old Chicago restaurant; toured facility with manager City of Boulder Environmental Affairs policy discussion with manager
- Discussion with Boulder County Commissioner concerning the County's sustainability issues and the role of government in promoting the Zero-Waste concepts and programs
- Boulder County Jail Compost center with Manager, Boulder County Resource Conservation Division
- Discussion with waste-hauling company, Western Disposal, including President and VP of Marketing and Sales regarding business services, hauler's regulations, etc.
- Tour of ReSource (a used building materials reuse facility) and question and answer session with Deputy Director for the center of Resource Conservation
- Zero Waste Box lunch from Dish Gourmet at Chautauqua Park
- Visit to Niwot Elementary School and discussion of the day-to-day operations of school recycling by the Energy Manager of St. Vrain School District and discussion of Eco-cycle's award-winning school recycling program
- Discussion of county recycling and Zero Waste programs by Manager, Boulder County Resource Conservation Division
- Zero Waste tour with Director of Sales at St. Julien Hotel
