My grandmother had two strong traditions that never varied throughout her long life: She cleaned the house from top to bottom in the spring and early summer, and she never threw away anything that was still usable.
Today, we live in a “throw-away” society. Fortunately, however, some of Grandma’s lessons live on. Spring and summer are cleanup time in many Colorado communities, and a number of metro area cities are helping to ensure that unwanted but still usable items have a chance at a second life.
For more than 20 years, the city of Littleton has had a Summer Cleanup Program to haul away large items that citizens no longer want but which are too large for conventional trash-haulers to take. Littleton residents can call and ask for a free pickup of old television sets, VCRs, sofas, stoves, dishwashers, washing machines and similar non-hazardous items. Two college students, hired for the summer, collect the unwanted items from the curb.
Charles Blosten, director of public works, says the program is extremely popular. In June, July and August of 2005, for example, Littleton’s Summer Cleanup Program crew went to almost 700 homes and collected 272 appliances, among other items. Almost 30,000 pounds of metal were saved for reuse. More than 130 television sets, VCRs and computers were recycled, helping to keep lead, mercury and cadmium out of the landfill. In addition, 90 pounds of Freon was salvaged from old refrigerators, ensuring that the gas wouldn’t damage the ozone layer.
Longmont has taken another approach, establishing a recycling program that involves a partnership with 13 local nonprofit organizations. Reuse, Educate and Community Health (REACH) is the brainchild of two operators with Longmont’s Solid Waste Division, Bradford Larsen and Brice Lutz.
REACH is implemented at five Stop-N-Drop events (special days for residents to bring unwanted items to Longmont’s disposal site) each year. Under the REACH program, nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army and others monitor the items dropped off and divert anything potentially useable to temporary storage. At the end of the day, they are either donated to the poor or re-sold to support the nonprofits’ programs.
In 2005, the REACH program diverted 14 “rolloff” containers from the landfill, Larsen says, a savings to the city of more than $2,000 in landfill fees alone. A partial reporting from nonprofits showed more than 400 items salvaged for reuse with an estimated value of almost $3,000. And the program is growing.
In 2004, Loveland began a program to recycle used cooking oil. Bruce Philbrick, superintendent of Loveland’s Division of Solid Waste, says the popularity of turkey fryers in recent years led to the city receiving calls from citizens who had “3- to 6-gallon jugs of leftover oil” and didn’t know what to do with it.
“We didn’t want them to dump it down the drain,” he says, “because oil can plug up the sewer system. We weren’t comfortable having them put it out with the trash, because in the landfill, liquids can lead to contamination of the groundwater.”
So Philbrick located a local company that collects used cooking oil, processes it and turns it into biodeisel, a fuel that can be used in any standard diesel-burning engine. “The company was already picking up used cooking oil from restaurants,” he says. “Since the end of May, they’ve been picking up from us as well, and turning the unwanted oil into something useful. It’s a win-win situation.”
Grandma would be proud.
Susan Thornton (smthornton@aol.com) served 16 years on the Littleton City Council, including eight years as mayor.
