Community Partnership | Denver, CO
Foodservice Packaging Materials Accepted
Paper cups*Aluminum foil containers
Paper bags
Molded fiber egg cartons
Pizza boxes
Plastic cups
Plastic take-out containers
*New items added during partnership
Background
In 2018, Denver offered curbside single-stream recycling to approximately 165,000 residents, collected every other week and delivered to Alpine Waste & Recycling (Republic Services). At the time, Denver’s recycling rate stood at 22% and the city had set its sights on not only meeting but surpassing the national average of 34%. In addition to recycling, Denver was actively pursuing various sustainability objectives, encompassing areas such as water quality and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
Operational and End Market Planning
Republic Services handles the annual processing of over 30,000 tons of recyclables for the city. The company aimed to enhance its recycling efforts by adding new feedstock to its operations, including paper cups.
The overarching objective of FPI's Community Partnership program is to integrate a range of foodservice packaging items into curbside recycling programs. An essential element of the program's strategy is ensuring the full alignment of the recycling value chain with these changes. In pursuit of this goal, FPI facilitated collaboration between Republic Services and Sustana's Fox River Fiber facility, the end market responsible for acquiring and processing materials into fresh products, to ensure agreement regarding the proposed changes.
Sustana is a leader in the production of high-grade 100% recycled market pulp for use in the paper industry and supplies recycled pulp to paper mills around the world. Sustana has been consuming poly-coated fiber at their mill in Wisconsin for a number of years and committed to providing an off-take agreement for a combined paper cup/carton bale produced at the Alpine MRF in Denver. Armed with this assurance, Alpine Waste & Recycling began including paper cups in its polycoat/carton bales destined for Fox River Fiber. At this facility, approximately 1.3 million pounds of postconsumer paper are received daily and transformed into 450 tons of de-inked recycled pulp for further processing into recycled-content products.
Outreach & Education
Following this change, the city of Denver carried out a targeted educational campaign to notify residents. FPI’s communications grant supported an outreach campaign and the development of educational pieces for the city including updates to Denver’s recycling website, a postcard mailer sent to 141,000 households with a recycling survey link, wrap ads placed on hauler trucks, newspaper and television coverage, social media outreach, and an updated residential recycling flyer.
The City of Denver hosted an event at Alpine Waste & Recycling to kick off the newly accepted material. The event featured recycling truck and cart demonstrations with speakers Councilwoman Kendra Black; Lynn Dyer and Natha Dempsey, FPI; Brent Hildebrand, Alpine Waste & Recycling; Eulois Cleckley and Charlotte Pitt, Denver Public Works; and Mark Bond, Sustana.
Results
The mailer sent to Denver residents revealed that 55% of survey respondents became aware about recycling paper cups after the initial launch announcement. Moreover, the recovery of paper cups increased the volume of the poly-coat/carton bale since the launch by 15-20%, resulting in faster generation of commodity truckloads.
Next Steps
In 2023, Denver will implement changes to its solid waste services. These changes involve transitioning to weekly recycling and compost collection while introducing a new fee structure based on the size of the trash cart, with smaller carts incurring lower fees. The city will also provide free curbside composting bins to every household. These changes are meant to reduce the amount of trash that residents send to the landfill, thereby reducing Denver’s contribution to global warming and climate change.
November 2022
