2 minute read
Where Golden's Recycling Goes
Social, Economic & Environmental Issues
When it’s time to evaluate newer sustainable technologies for Golden’s projects and programs, the City of Golden often turns to the Colorado School of Mines undergraduate seniors for their assistance. This academic year two groups of students, under the guidance of City staff and technical advisors, worked to implement beneficial recovery systems from wastewater for their capstone design projects. One team researched how heat recovery from wastewater could increase the energy efficiency in new buildings. A second team researched how nitrogen recovery from urine has the potential to reduce vehicle miles traveled associated with fertilizing local crops or community gardens. The teams have played an important role in proving their feasibility and the City appreciates the partnership with Mines for their academic expertise. Their final reports can be found at www.cityofgolden.net/ live/sustainability-initiative/education-outreach/.
CSM Project: Golden Energize Engineering - Wastewater Heat Recovery. Graphic of wastewater heat recovery of wastewater treatment plant.
How Do I Know My Recyclables Are Getting Recycled?
If you’ve ever typed “Do recyclable materials actually get recycled?” into your favorite search engine, then you may have been faced with a confusing assortment of percentages or news articles attempting to answer this question. For customers of the City Pay-As-You-Throw waste hauling program the answer is simple: Yes.
The City’s waste hauler, Republic Services, transports recyclables from Golden’s curbsides to Altogether Recycling, a material recovery facility (aka, the "MeRF") in north Denver. The hauler demonstrates that recyclables make it to the facility by providing receipts and material volume data to the City, which also help track progress toward the City’s diversion goals. From this data, it is estimated that Golden diverts an average of 70 tons of material, or 15 pounds per household, of recyclables every month through the City’s collection program.
Once materials are sorted, baled, and sold to the end processor, they become valuable commodities on the secondary market. Altogether Recycling has expert staff who keep up to date on market conditions and adjust operations as needed to meet demand. Occasionally, if demand for a certain material is low, Altogether Recycling has the capacity to store that material until their experts can find another market. When the demand stays low for a significant amount of time, Altogether Recycling has policies to slow the intake of that material to their facility, but in every case, these materials are never landfilled.
The majority of recycled materials have established markets in the U.S. and this helps keep demand predictable. The graphic shows where the most commonly recycled materials go to find their second life. • Cardboard – Oklahoma and Iowa • Mixed paper – Primarily Mexico • Glass – Probably Colorado’s best closed loop recycling program. Glass goes from the MeRF to
Momentum Recycling, where it is cleaned and sorted, then on to the well-known bottle plants that make beer in Golden and Fort Collins. • Aluminum – Various mills in the southeast part of the U.S. • Plastics – Going to Texas, Louisiana, the Carolinas, or some foreign markets. For plastics collected through the city's residential program, nearly all of their plastics are processed domestically.
