The city of Steamboat Springs and the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council are pursuing a project that aims to partner with area restaurants to compost some of that food waste. Currently, there is no residential or commercial composting service in the Yampa Valley. The Milner Landfill composts wood chips and treated human waste from the city wastewater treatment plant.
“It’s a huge portion of our waste, and since we do not have food waste compost currently, that’s going into the landfill, except for, maybe, some people that are doing backyard composting,” said Madison Muxworthy, waste diversion director for the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council. “Twenty-one percent of our waste is unnecessarily going into the landfill, which we could divert through composting or other methods of organics recycling. It’s definitely filling a huge hole, and we’re really excited to support it.”
While the program will serve restaurants initially, organizers hope it eventually evolves into community recycling, though Muxworthy said when that would happen is “up in the air at this point.”