Waste Diversion
Our goal is to increase regional recycling, composting and waste reduction in Routt and Moffat County.
Our Role:
YVSC serves as a hub for information and knowledge about local recycling and waste diversion. We work with partners to provide education, technical assistance and services to increase regional success in waste diversion and help the region adopt circular economy thinking and action. Programs include our Yampa Valley Recycles Depot for year-round hard-to-recycle materials drop-off and Yampa Valley Recycles free online resource and app. YVSC’s programs help our community recycle and compost right, decrease contamination and strive to improve recycling and composting infrastructure in the Yampa Valley.
Why it Matters:
The primary greenhouse gas emitted from waste is methane, which is 86 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 20-year period. Methane accounts for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions but is responsible for about half of the net increase in global temperature since pre-Industrial era. Diverting waste from the landfill through reduction, reuse, and recycling, thereby mitigating even small amounts of methane, can drive significant progress towards achieving a 1.5 degrees Celsius future.
In 2017, the Colorado Solid and Hazardous Waste Commission approved the state’s first-ever waste diversion goals, aiming to increase statewide recycling and composting over the next 20 years. Colorado’s current municipal waste diversion rate is only 15%, far below the national average of 35%. The new goal for Colorado is 45% recovery by 2036. Rural areas like Routt County are currently diverting 12% of waste.
Routt County and other rural communities all over Colorado face unique barriers to high rates of waste diversion due to our distance from recycling processors and the cost of hauling over mountain passes. These challenges motivate communities like ours to think creatively. In response to both the state goals and strong community support to improve recycling and organics management, YVSC works with community members and partners to increase waste diversion and continue to scale successes through our programming.
Hard-to-recycle (HTR) materials recovered at the Yampa Valley Recycles Depot
Materials diverted from the landfill via YVSC Zero Waste event services
CO2 equivalent emissions avoided via YVSC Zero Waste event service
Recycling
Recycling reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and offsets the need to harvest new raw materials, which conserves energy, reduces air and water pollution, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling is not just good for the environment. It’s also good for the economy, creating jobs and generating local and state tax revenue. On average, ten times more jobs are created from recycling than from trash. Recyclable materials are a valuable resource, many of which can be recycled indefinitely.
Composting
Food waste has become a large contributor to climate change as nearly one third of all the food in the world is wasted. Composting allows us to eliminate some of that waste by returning the nutrients to the soil. Compost serves as a slow-release fertilizer that increases plant production and carbon storage in the soil.
Click the links below to learn more about the work YVSC is doing in each of these sectors.
get our app
Search hundreds of items and find out where to recycle them in Routt County. Available in your phone’s app store or at yampavalleyrecycles.org.
What you can do
Reduce your waste
Recycle your hard-to-recycle materials at the Yampa Valley Recycles Depot
Compost at home
Compost with our local vendor: Cowgirl Compost CO
Encourage others to waste less and compost
Download the Yampa Valley Recycles app. Our Yampa Valley Recycles app can answer any local recycling questions you might have.
Join a recycling task force. In 2019 YVSC worked with Routt County to create the Waste Diversion Strategic Plan which identifies curbside recycling and business waste diversion as priority areas. YVSC needs community volunteers to serve on those task forces. For information about joining a task force, please email info@yvsc.org.
Features
- This article, written by YVSC’s Kate Brocato, discusses food waste in the Yampa Valley.
- IRC expanded their composting program to include neighborhood drop-off options. Read the latest about IRC’s compost program here .
- To learn more about the history of YVSC’s Earth Cubes, check out this article from 2018.
get our app
Search hundreds of items and find out where to recycle them in Routt County. Available in your phone’s app store or at yampavalleyrecycles.org.