SUCCESS STORIES

In a culture reluctant to face the consequences of over consumption and a throw away lifestyle, Eco-Cycle of Boulder, Colorado concentrates on trying to cut one strand of the Gordian knot known as global warming or climate change.

The developing green revolution is heavily involved in minimizing waste.

Talking Trash

Originally a volunteer grass-roots effort, Eco-Cycle now has 60 employees, an annual payroll of $2 million and is recognized as being in the forefront of community recycling.

After 33 years, the pioneering organization has been catapulted into the recycling spotlight. Many communities have recycling programs, but Eco-Cycle has taken the effort to a high level by promoting the Zero Waste goal of diverting 90 percent of Boulder County’s trash away from landfills.

From Landfill to Zero Waste Park

Eric Lombardi, executive director of Eco-Cycle, has developed a plan for a Zero Waste Park, which can dramatically reduce a city’s waste stream.

By shifting their operations away from piling up trash to a new approach, landfill companies can receive materials pre-sorted by the community and can screen remaining waste for potential additional recoverable resources.

After hearing about Boulder’s progress toward the Zero Waste by applying the principles of resource recovery through recycling, composting and reuse, a private landfill company in Vancouver, Canada, paid Lombardi to speak at a conference of urban planners about replicating the program there.

Lombardi has received inquiries on Eco-Cycle’s Zero Waste program from Scotland, Mexico, New Zealand and Hawaii to advise communities with rapidly filling landfills.

A Tipping Point for Trash?

Municipalities with dwindling landfill capacity are finding it more and more difficult to find acceptable new sites for their trash. Elected officials have discovered that siting new landfills has become a political third rail.

As an alternative, communities often contemplate establishing incinerators only to find that that route has its own negatives, especially from the release of toxins into the air. This is where the Zero Waste concept can become an ally.

Trash companies that run the landfills face loss of business, even extinction, as landfills close.

“Landfills are like black holes where resources go in and never come out,” says Lombardi.

Just as the auto industry is realizing the need to switch to fuel-efficient vehicles if it expects to remain in business, landfill companies are recognizing the necessity to change their modes of operating. Piling up mountains of trash is not sustainable. Eco-Cycle looks at a polluting eyesore and sees reusable, recyclable, compostable resources.

Public Education and Buy-In is Key

Eco-Cycle works nonstop to educate the population of Boulder County and keeps a high public profile in the local newspaper and with community organizations and businesses.

To name just a few of its many initiatives, it makes information about recycling easily accessible on line in both English and Spanish; it accepts the growing volume of electronic discards for reuse or recycling and has a program for hard-to-recycle items; it strives to influence buying habits away from disposables by promoting alternatives; it maintains a network of volunteer block leaders throughout the area who serve as sources of accurate information about recycling and are ready to suggest eco-friendly resources that can be used in their neighborhoods.

Eco-Cycle also keeps the goal of Zero Waste in the public consciousness by highlighting public events that recycle or compost all of the trash that such occasions usually produce.

Perhaps, at least in Boulder, one strand of that Gordian knot is beginning to fray.

Project Name: Zero Waste
Grantee: Eco-Cycle
Project Location: Boulder, Colorado
Grantmaker: Friendship Fund
For More Information Contact:

Susan Haff, The Friendship Fund c/o GMA Foundations 617-426-7080
Eric Lombardi, Executive Director, Eco-Cycle 303-444-6634