Mountain Community Composting

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

Boulder County has a unique topographical makeup which includes a change in elevation from 5,000 up to 14,000 feet. Many of the larger municipalities are on the plains areas where recycling and composting services are easy to administer, but many communities are in the mountainous areas and are more difficult to service. The county began accepting compost at a drop off site in the mountain community of Nederland in 2015. Nederland is a mountain community on the southwest end of Boulder County that does not have curbside pick-up of trash, recycling, or compost for residents and instead relies on residents dropping off trash, recycling, and not compost, at the Waste Transfer Station. Offering a compost drop off option at the Waste Transfer Station increases the diversion of organic materials from the landfill. If organic material is deposited in the landfill it decomposes anaerobically (without oxygen) and creates methane, a greenhouse gas up to 40 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its climate warming capacity. On the other hand, when organic materials are composted they turn into rich nutrients for soils which reduce the need for using artificial fertilizers on farms and in gardens. In 2016, the first full year of the program being operational, the compost program diverted 21.04 tons of compostable material from the landfill. This increased Nederland’s overall diversion rate by approximately 10%.