Resource Recovery Park: A Waste-Reducing Project in the Works

Americans are currently producing an average of 4.4 pounds of waste per person per day. In La Plata County alone, this means we are producing a ton of waste every 12 minutes, enough to fill more than 2,000 semi-trucks every year. When the waste from Archuleta and Montezuma Counties are included, we produce a ton of waste every 7.5 minutes, enough to fill 3,500 semi-trucks annually. Unfortunately, rural residents generally produce more waste than urban residents, so our waste problem is actually larger than the 4.4 pounds per person per day would suggest. Finally, the recycling rate in this region is half of the state average and five times lower than the national average.

Landfilling Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) constitutes both an environmental and economic liability. The environmental consequences of landfilling our waste include air and water pollution. The pollution occurs locally as greenhouse gases escape into our atmosphere and leachate seeps out of the landfill, as well as globally when new materials must be extracted and refined to replace the resources we waste.
Furthermore, landfilling waste robs potential small businesses of valuable raw materials and maintains only three full-time jobs at the Bondad landfill; one gate attendant and two equipment operators. Even though our community currently only recycles about 4.3% of our waste, we already maintain 18 full-time jobs in recycling and many more in reuse. Continuing to send the majority of our waste to the landfill will not contribute to the economic development of our region.

A Resource Recovery Park (RRP) is currently being proposed in our region that could be a potential solution to waste and economic development issues. An RRP would provide a better outlet for all recyclable and reusable material resources, by expanding recycling services to meet current and future demand, and by increasing opportunities for employment and self-employment.

A Resource Recovery Park is a co-location of reuse, recycling, composting, manufacturing, and retail businesses in one central facility, where the public can bring all their waste and recoverable materials to one convenient location.  The proposed RRP would include a regional recycling facility, a buy-back facility, a compost center, a compost-powered green house, a center for hard to recycle materials (CHARM), and a green business incubator program, among others.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is filled with valuable materials that can become an economic asset rather than an environmental liability. When collected with skill and care, and upgraded with quality in mind, these discarded materials can become the foundation for a variety of local reuse and recycling businesses and products. In this way, recycling is an economic development tool as well as an environmental tool. Reuse and recycling offer direct opportunities for our community to build the local economic base by generating local revenue, expanding small business opportunities and creating jobs. Creating a Resource Recovery Park will create design, engineering and construction jobs from the start, green-collar jobs and careers once the RRP is operational, and finally white-collar jobs and careers once we become a best practice community.