Half of what Aspen throws away at landfill is ‘locally recyclable,’ city official says
Stimulated construction, debris diversion to support city emission goals
The Aspen Times archives
When it comes to demolition, Aspen continues to seek greener pastures.
During a Monday work session, City Council members addressed an ongoing proposal to adopt an ordinance requiring developers and contractors to sort salvageable materials when hauling waste and debris to the Pitkin County Landfill. Trying to emulate Pitkin County’s 2021 construction and demolition ordinance, Aspen seeks by 2050 to deter greenhouse gas emissions by reducing landfill waste by 70%.
According to city documents, annual landfill waste generation accounts for 16% of the community’s greenhouse gas emissions while construction and demolition debris accounts for 53% of the total materials disposed of in the Pitkin County Landfill annually.
“Half of what we’re throwing away for (construction and demolition) is locally recyclable,” Waste Diversion and Recycling Administrator Ainsley Brosnan-Smith said during Monday’s work session.
One major proposal is to require all projects with a footprint larger than a 2,000 square foot disturbance area to participate in the waste diversion program. Developers and contractors who do must divert at least 35% of construction and demolition debris from the local landfill, instead recycling materials like concrete, metals, and asphalt.
“They have a deposit system where $1,000 per ton of estimated waste is deposited to the county, and if the project achieves that 35% diversion they receive that deposit back,” Brosnan-Smith said of Pitkin County’s debris ordinance. “And if they do not, it is figured out between the county and the project.”
There are also unsorted load penalty fees at Pitkin County Landfill, Brosnan-Smith said. A truck is penalized $100 if it has any recyclable content in its load, on top of the tipping fee for disposal.
Under its new demo ordinance, Pitkin County Landfill finalized 28 projects, Brosnan-Smith said. Out of those 28 projects, 25 projects received a 100% refund. This means they reached the 35% diversion goal.
“So even though projects only had to reach 35% diversion, they were seeing, on average, projects reaching 66% diversion,” she said.
But as Aspen ponders the initiative, it recently set out to hear from residents, developers and stakeholders. Through meetings and a survey conducted earlier this year, which included 68 participants, respondents’ biggest concern was added costs of having to separate materials, even though 77% supported the ordinance.
John Kuersten is a contractor and part owner of Alpine Waste and Recycling, which handles debris services in Aspen. He said ever since Pitkin County adopted its construction and demolition debris ordinance, “nobody takes it to the Pitkin County Landfill now.”
“Their rates are ridiculously high,” he said. “All they’re doing is discouraging filling up the landfill. So what that does is kicks everything down to South Canyon Landfill in Glenwood. They caught on really quick this last year, they doubled their rates …
“All it does is shifts the disposal to other counties.”
Kuersten said, however, concrete can be crushed — if there’s not a lot of rebar in it — and be reused as base. Meanwhile, asphalt can be grinded up and recycled back into asphalt, while steel can be sorted and taken to a steel recycling facility.
But for other building materials, where do you take it to be recycled? Kuersten asked.
Aspen is currently focusing on the building materials that can be recycled, or reprocessed, on site at the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center, city documents show. The city said additional options could include using Habitat For Humanity Restores, which divert “reusable household items and building materials from area landfills,” its website states, as well as other various facilities that process concrete aggregate.
In addition to where to recycle, Pitkin County Landfill Manager Cathy Hall said the landfill does have a flow control rule, requiring waste generated in Pitkin County to go to the Pitkin County Landfill. Hall, however, added that the rule is not enforced because it costs too much for haulers to take it to South Canyon — the next closest landfill.
“It doesn’t make much sense to drive by us,” she said.
When it comes to projects, one luxury many developers and contractors — as well as neighbors — don’t have is time. Councilmember Bill Guth asked how much longer a demo would take if the ordinance were implemented. Brosnan-Smith responded, “If a typical demo would take one to two weeks, then an approach of this type would take closer to a month.”
“I’m not opposed to this. I think that there could be something here,” Guth said. “But I want to be very clear about what the challenges and issues are for our community. And I think that we want to come to an appropriate balance.”
The city recommends hiring a full-time staff member would also monitor ongoing projects through a program called Green Halo to track waste diversion data, determining deposit releases for projects that achieve diversion standards, city documents state.
Another concern council members addressed was the possibility of more sorting containers taking up right of way and space, especially in the downtown core.
“I’m supportive of flexibility. I think that’s what it takes to make a program like this successful, so I’m interested,” Mayor Torre said. “I will say that right now I see oftentimes in our downtown core situations that I think are a little relaxed, and can maybe do a little too much.”
Torre also spoke to the possibility of sorting materials prolonging demo times.
“When it comes to a lengthened demo timeline, talking about two weeks to possibly four or five weeks, for me, with sensitivity to residents around our community, that is not severely impacting to get the community goals achieved that we’re doing here,” Torre said. “So I appreciate it. I wanted to see that timeline as short as possible.”
City Council members, however, all agreed with the proposed ordinance and staff recommendations, with possibly finding alternatives to on-site sorting, hiring an additional full-time staffer to monitor sorting of each project, and potentially increasing the 35% stipulation of sorting.
“I like 100% diversion of all recoverable materials,” Councilmember John Doyle said.
Brosnan-Smith said the next step in the ordinance process is returning to City Council in the late summer, early fall with proposed codes.
