06/12/2026
One of ESA’s staff members, Josie, recently attended the 3-day Recycle Colorado Conference.
Also representing our mountain town area was Foothills Recycling Owner, Megan Mitchell, and new owner of South Platte Services (formerly Shirley Septic), Doug Atkinson, as well as a showing for our very own Executive Director, Wendy!
The event offered a powerful opportunity to collaborate, meet and converse with environmental leaders from across the state on the future of waste diversion.
What are some of the BIG takeaways from the conference?!
1. The Reality of Recycling: Proper recycling effectively keeps materials out of landfills and drives economic and job growth across Colorado- something our mountain community certainly has room to improve on.
2. The Importance of Composting: Organics and food scrap collection remain critical to waste reduction. The state is actively working on improving composting infrastructure, accessibility, and contamination control.
3. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Municipalities and organizations are working hard to establish free community recycling programs, which will be very beneficial to our mountain communities once in play.
4. Supporting reuse programs is necessary: Recycling is great and all but an even BETTER route is reuse. Supporting programs like a Refill Station helps reduce single-use production while keeping that container out of the landfill…good thing we have one in our very own community 😄
Colorado is a beautiful place to live and there are many people behind the scenes that are doing their part to keep it as so.
