When looking for opportunities to increase waste diversion from the landfill, eyes should turn to the construction and lodging sectors.

Construction waste is bulky. Clearly, there’s a lot of construction in Summit county. This includes the numerous workforce housing projects of which the county is involved.

In the lodging sector, rental properties present a big opportunity for waste diversion. Visitors often want to do the right thing, but they lack separate waste containers for recycling. 

Education about what materials can be recycled is also missing. I’d lay money that our single-stream system is different than signal-stream systems in other parts of the country. Let’s not even get started on single-use water bottles from this sector.

“B like Breckenridge” is busy touting sunscreen at high elevation when they could be delivering much more meaningful visitor education messaging.

For a comprehensive and successful program to be developed, all stakeholder — including waste haulers, builders, and rental managers — need to be engaged. Again, visitor education is also a key part of the equation.