The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Recycled materials demand is also high
[ By Katherine Nettles ]
Crested Butte is recycling and cleaning out old junk more than ever during the pandemic, and the regional collection company Waste Management is working hard to keep up. Ellie Reynolds, public sector solutions manager from Waste Management, and district manager Austin Oliver gave updates to the Crested Butte Town Council on December 7, particularly as related to the pandemic and its effect on people staying home and getting rid of more stuff.
“You’re processing about 278 tons from Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte [combined],” Reynolds said. “We’ve definitely seen an increase in tonnage at the curb due to COVID, in both the recycling and the disposal.”
This represents an average six-pound trash increase at the curb per household.
“Really it’s just more people staying at home and producing more trash … and trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible during this time,” said Reynolds.
Reynolds said there have been no delays or interruptions in trash collections and processing due to COVID, even in Grand Junction where these materials end up. This is a result of creating separate shifts or “waves” of collections staff.
She said recycling collection has also gone uninterrupted.
“That’s really important, because you all have dual stream, and there is a little bit more handling that goes into sorting the materials of dual stream at our facility in Grand Junction where your materials end up.”
Issues with pickup, turnover and overflows
Mayor Jim Schmidt and town manager Dara MacDonald said there were some issues recently with containers along Elk Avenue not being emptied often enough. MacDonald said she thought it was a result of a longtime staff member with Waste Management retiring and subsequent gaps in communication. “I think communication in the last week or two has been really positive. Hopefully we can manage that going forward,” said MacDonald.
“We have made some changes at the local office, and I know that one of the concerns had to do with us moving to more of a call center focus,” said Reynolds. Part of that is due to COVID, with more employees in those positions working from home.
Mayor Schmidt shared a frustrating incident from this past summer when his trash was missed during pickup, and he couldn’t get through the corporate system to anyone who could help. “I ended up talking to somebody in Texas who not only told me my address didn’t exist, and she didn’t care if I was mayor; she just didn’t care,” he said.
Schmidt said he wanted to make sure there is someone local on call for not just those individual issues but for emergency overflows at parks at the end of a busy weekend as well.
“We don’t have weekend service in our area,” said Oliver.
“This is a resort town. We operate seven days a week. It’s very distressing to hear that you guys don’t respond to that,” replied Schmidt.
Oliver said Waste Management can make exceptions for special events and festivals, and they are working on a local customer service contact number, on-call availability and system updates to get all addresses accounted for.
Recyclers rejoice
One bit of good news for 2020, said Reynolds, is that recycling is having a moment.
“While we maybe have talked to you about the doom and gloom of the recycling industry for many years, we are seeing a little bit of an uptick right now because the demand for those paper, plastic and aluminum products is higher than ever,” said Reynolds. The processing costs have also tapered off as the facilities have gotten a system down and seen good returns on investment.
There is especially an aluminum shortage, according to Reynolds. “So the more aluminum you can put in there, the better.”
Just make sure to rinse out those soda cans.
