Colorado is about to have a statewide recycling program that will increase recycling access to hundreds of thousands of people. The bill creating the Producer Responsibility Program passed in Colorado two years ago, but this spring, state lawmakers gave it the green light to move forward for implementation through a Joint Budget Action Committee approval.
The program will require companies that package their products in single-use materials – like foods, beverages, and other items – to pay a fee, which will pay for everyone across the state who has access to curbside trash pickup to also receive curbside recycling pickup for free.
“The fee is assessed on each piece of packaging that is used, and that fee is used for two things: it’s used to send a signal to the producer, use less packaging, and the other part is to support our recycling system, which we pay for now,” says Henry Stiles with Environment Colorado, one of the advocacy organizations that helped lead the charge for the program’s creation.