City Pilot Program Gauges Citizen Interest in Diverting Yard Waste to a Composting Facility

"We’re kind of in a data-gathering phase right now," said Darren Starr, the city’s manager of streets and solid waste.

Approximately 650 households in Spring Valley subdivision and The Knolls have been asked by the city’s waste department if they want to participate in the Green Waste Curbside Collection Service Pilot Program, and they have until March 1 to sign up. At this point, only customers located in those two subdivisions are eligible for the program.

The program provides customers with a separate bin for compost, marked with a yellow lid. Yard waste including lawn clippings, leaves and small branches can be included in this container. Unlike the piles of material accepted once a year for Spring Clean Up, all the waste must fit inside the container.

The collected organic matter goes to the compost facility at the Mesa County Landfill and is turned into compost instead of being buried with other trash.

Composting not only keeps organic waste out of the landfill, reserving space for other trash that cannot be dealt with another way, but it also helps create a usable product from waste that helps build healthy soil.

The pilot area, which was the same area chosen in the early 1990s to try out recycling when the city first started offering that service, offers a mixture of established homes with mature landscaping as well as homes with xeriscaped yards. Starr said it seemed like a good place to do another pilot program for that reason.