Program to pick up kitchen scraps, yard waste could come to Boulder

By the time this summer rolls around, Boulder residents might be able to put their kitchen scraps, grass clippings and yard waste out on the curb to be picked up and made into compost rather than going to the landfill.

That's because trash haulers who now have to make two trips to pick up recyclables every month -- once for containers and once for paper -- will soon have to make only one stop, as Boulder County's recycling plant switches to single-stream recycling.

The conversation started more than two years ago, when county
officials first talked about making the switch, said Gary Horton,
president of Western Disposal.

"When they started talking about converting, we said, 'We're going
to have this extra collection day; let's think about doing organics,'"
he said.

That category includes "all compostable material," Horton said.
"Food scraps, including meat and bones, all yard waste, clippings from
bushes, from trees, all the things from your yard."

That material will be trucked out and added to the company's compost
pile in east Boulder. The compost is later bagged and sold for
consumers' gardens, Horton said.