Your New Boulder County Recycling Center is Ready!
After 25 Years of Working Outside, EcoCycle Crews Move Indoors

Say goodbye to processing in the wind. EcoCycle crews scramble to cover mountains of papers with nets to keep them from blowing. Those days are almost over. EcoCycle will finally be operating indoors.

Home, Sweet New Home for Production Crews. The new, county-owned facility's larger capacity will create opportunities for more types of materials to be collected, and for improved recycling service, such as more materials accepted a the curb.

When EcoCycle Executive Director Eric Lombardi started at EcoCycle in 1989, his number one goal was to get a roof over EcoCycle’s processing facility. “No other recycler in the nation is processing outdoors the volume of recycled paper we handle,” says Lombardi, “let alone processing in Chinook winds.” A Chinook can start in an instant, and when it does EcoCycle crews scramble to cover mountains of papers with nets to keep them from blowing all the way to Kansas — let alone Pearl St. Those days are almost over, though, and now, as a fitting celebration of EcoCycle’s 25th birthday, EcoCycle crews will finally be operating indoors and out of the blowing wind... and snow, and rain, and hail.

What a long strange trip it’s been to get here. A 1991 engineering analysis of EcoCycle’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) concluded that the facility would soon be pushed beyond its capacity. The EcoCycle staff responded by writing the “Vision Document,” which described how a 50% Landfill Diversion goal for the County was the next great step forward in local recycling, and that a modern MRF was needed to support that vision. When Boulder County’s only landfill closed in 1992, EcoCycle and the County Commissioners organized a county-wide Solid Waste Summit and used the Vision Document as the jumping off point for planning the future.

After the summit, a Solid Waste Advisory Task Force was formed to research and cost out how the county might reach a 50% landfill diversion rate. It was decided that a new public funding source was needed, and in 1994 a sales tax initiative was proposed which would raise around $20 million over a 7-year tax period, after which the tax would go away.

The money was earmarked to build infrastructure for future recycling, composting and other waste diversion bricks-and-mortar needs. The plan was for the public to pay for the buildings, but for the private sector (for-profit and non-profit) to carry the operating expenses. It was a good plan and EcoCycle led the campaign charge to pass the tax by mobilizing hundreds of volunteer Block Leaders into action. The tax passed by a mere 52% to 48% margin.

The Boulder County Recycling and Composting Authority was created to oversee the tax, and to put out for bid the task of designing, building, and operating the new facility. After a controversial three-year process, EcoCycle was awarded the contract to operate the new, publicly-owned facility.

The Boulder County Recycling Center will create new opportunities for more materials to be collected, and for improved recycling service, such as more materials accepted at the curb. EcoCycle’s current facility is maxing out, processing almost 40,000 tons per year. The new facility is designed to handle 75,000 tons per year. Included at the new site are a drop-off center, administration building, touring walkways and educational displays. It is built with attention to energy conservation, with the incorporation of recycled products, and with the use of alternative products or minimal material use.

Not all of the EcoCycle family will be moving. Production and some administrative staff will be housed at the new facility, while our education, community outreach and business recycling staff will stay at the old processing site.

The new recycling center is just one piece of the public infrastructure needed to reach the 50% diversion goal. In the years to come EcoCycle will push for other waste reduction measures originally intended to be funded by the tax, including local infrastructure for organic material like food, leaves and grass clippings. Staff at the old facility will be working to create a new Center for Harder-to-Recycle Materials like computers, TV’s, electronics, books, and textiles. It’s been a rough ride, but we’re excited to see the vision of a recycling facility finally come to fruition and for the opportunity to shift our focus to creating even more opportunities for our community to save resources.