Beginning Sept. 16, Glenwood Springs residents could see fines for placing unrecyclable items in their recycle bin. The city鈥檚 new Recycling Contamination Fee will charge households $24 per occurrence of contaminated recycle carts. The fee is only applicable to residential recycling bins/dumpsters in the city鈥檚 Pay as You Throw (PAYT) program, which was first rolled out in October 2023. In terms of commercial and multifamily recycling, Public Information Officer Bryana Starbuck said Glenwood Springs City Council plans to discuss those ordinances in September.
鈥淒iverting recyclables from the landfill and maximizing correct recycling are core parts of the PAYT program. We鈥檝e shared guidance on how to properly recycle, and now with this most recent round of education we鈥檙e implementing the fee to disincentivize improper recycling,鈥� Starbuck wrote in a statement to the Post Independent. 鈥淭he fee has always been part of the program, but we wanted to understand issue areas and have a couple progress reports before we implemented the fee.鈥�
The reports referenced show that roughly 14.5-16% of PAYT recycling loads shared between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale are non-recyclable (Mountain Waste and Recycling also services Carbondale鈥檚 trash and recycling program). The number could be related to one of the issue areas identified by the city, which is inappropriate use of recycling bins to avoid a $12.72 trash overflow fee.