Landfill in Colorado mountain town roughly one-third construction and demolition materials, study finds
In order to learn what needs to be saved from the landfill, we first need to know what's going into it. That was the idea behind the High Country Conservation Center's report on construction and demolition waste, which accounts for roughly 30% of the Summit County Landfill's intake.
"It would be extremely significant if we can fix that," Rachel Zerowin, community programs director with High Country Conservation Center, said. "When we looked at the results of the C&D waste sites, we found about 1/3 of the materials were recyclable."
"Not every C&D material is recyclable yet, like drywall. There's not a market for that yet. However, things like clean wood, we can potentially turn that into mulch," Zerowin said. "That matters."
Things like clean wood and scrap metal can be easily recycled and saved from the landfill, which Zerowin points out does eventually fill up. There's also a financial impact.
"It's really expensive to close a landfill. The more we can recycle, the better health for our community and long-term sustainability," Zerowin explained.
Now, the focus is on helping to encourage or educate people working on building something up or taking something down to recycle as much as they can and finding ways to lower barriers to recycling so it's as convenient as possible. That being said, Zerowin believes there are already good actors who are setting a good example in the county.
"Already some people in Summit County are doing a great job recycling. For example, we have seen buildings come down where all of that scrap metal gets recycled," Zerowin said. "We would love to see more people doing that."
