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Take Action for Zero Waste!
In this issue of the
Eco-Cycle Times, youll find many ways to strive for Zero Waste at home,
at work, at school and in your community:
Educate yourself about the new single-stream program and learn the most important materials
we need you to keep OUT of the bin to make single-stream a success. (p. 1)
Recycle your bike tires and bike tubes at the CHaRM. (p. 3)
Are your food scraps and grass clippings heating the planet? Join the national COOL 2012
campaign: Compostable Organics Out of Landfills by 2012. (p. 4)
Support BVSDs new program to replace all disposable cafeteria trays with reusable trays,
cutting lunchroom waste by at least 60%! (p. 5)
Patronize one of the many businesses working toward Zero Waste with Eco-Cycle. (p. 5, 6)
Find out the winners of this years Zero Waste Community & Business Awards. (p. 6)
You can also make a personal, tax-deductible contribution to Eco-Cycle. Your gift will support
Eco-Cycles work to build a model Zero Waste community for the world.
To donate, please clip the coupon below or visit www.ecocycle.org.

Contact me about setting up a recurring monthly gift to Eco-Cycle
through my credit card.
Working to Build Zero Waste Communities
Volume 32, No. 1 | Spring/Summer 2008
CHaRM Accepts Bike Tires and Tubes Recyclings Dirty Dozen Worst Contaminants Are Your Food Scraps Warming the Planet?
Your Recycling Bin is Evolving
for the 21
st
Century!
see story page 1
1970s and 1980s
1990s
2008
Recycling Guidelines Pull-Out
Recyclers were asked to separate
their materials in as many as
eight categories.
Recyclers sorted their materials into two bins.
Single-stream begins in Boulder County.
This year, your two recycling bins will at last
become ONE! Boulder County recycling bins are evolving for
the 21
st
century. Depending on where you live
in Boulder County, sometime this year your two
recycling bins will at last become ONE. Instead
of diligently separating recy-
clables into two streams
mixed paper (newspaper,
junk mail, etc.) and commin-
gled containers (bottles, cans,
etc.) recyclers whose
materials go to the Boulder
County Recycling Center
will be able to put these two
streams together in one bin.
The new program is called
single-stream recycling.
Its the future for responsible
resource conservation and
an important step toward
meeting our goal of building
a Zero Waste community
by 2020.
Single-stream recycling makes it almost as easy
to use the recycling bin as it is to use the trash
can, so for the previously unconverted, theres
no excuse for not recycling. It also creates a
significant opportunity for communities to get
a lot closer to their Zero Waste goals through
a revolutionary new system called Three Bin
Collection. With all your recyclables collected
in one can, communities and recycling haulers
can plan to use the second can for compostable
materials like food scraps and yard waste, mak-
ing it possible for you to recover up to 80% of
your discards. That leaves little need for that
third can, the trash.
Single-stream is new, its different from how
weve collected recyclables in the county for the
last 32 years, and there are a lot of questions
associated with it.
Q: Lets start with the basics What is
single-stream recycling?
A. Single-stream isnt anything fancy. It simply
refers to a new system that takes the two recy-
cling streams collected through the Boulder
curbside program mixed paper and commin-
gled containers and puts them together in
one bin. Voila. Single-stream. Two bins, now one.
It is still important to follow the same guidelines
applied to the two-bin program, except you put
the two streams together.
Q: Why are we moving to single-stream?
A.
Using just one collection bin for all your recy-
clable items increases the ease and convenience
of recycling so that more people participate and
more resources are saved. Were making recy-
cling easier for you at home, at work and on
the go.
It offers more efficient collections for the
haulers who normally have to run two recy-
cling routes to collect the two streams. It
decreases the most costly part of recycling
programs as well as the pollution from
collection vehicles. And most importantly,
as we mentioned, it opens a bin up for col-
lecting compostable materials like food
scraps and yard waste. Composting these
materials prevents the release of methane, a
greenhouse gas 72 times more potent than
carbon dioxide in the short term. Read more
about the importance of keeping organics
out of landfills on page 4.
Q: But I dont mind sorting my materials.
Isnt it better for recycling if we separate
them like weve been doing?
A.
We hear you. Weve been addicted to sorting,
too. But even those of us long-term recyclers
who got to participate in Boulders pilot single-
stream program in 2006 found we became
hooked on the new single-stream system once
we tried it.
It is always good for recycling when the materi-
als are properly sorted at the source, a.k.a. your
home, school or office. And, sorting is still critical
in that you make absolutely sure youre recycling
only the items accepted. It is also good for recy-
cling if ever-increasing amounts of material are
kept out of the landfill and sold in good clean
condition to the remanufacturing companies
that make new products from recycled material.
Single-stream helps to increase this volume of
materials.
Q: How are the materials separated?
A.
The Boulder County Recycling Center has
installed new sorting equipment to automati-
cally sort many of the materials. With the new
equipment, there are screens to separate flats
(paper) from rounds (containers). For this
reason, we ask that you do not flatten containers
or the screen will sort them into the wrong bin.
You can check out the new sorting equipment in
person by taking a tour of the facility.
Q: Doesnt this lower the value of the materi-
als, and wont there be a lot of contamination?
A.
Not necessarily. One of the concerns associ-
ated with single-stream recycling is that one
bin tends to encourage people to suddenly put
EVERYTHING that seems recyclable in it. Thats
why we need YOU to help demonstrate that a
community full of educated, conscientious recy-
clers can make single-stream recycling a success.
Please follow the guidelines carefully and check
out our list of worst contaminants on this page
to help us keep these problem items out.
Q: Are other communities using single-
stream recycling?
A.
Yes. Other communities diverting 50%, 60%,
even 70% of their waste from the landfill have
achieved these goals in part by switching to sin-
gle-stream. Some of the communities currently
using single-stream include San Francisco,
Toronto, Denver, Tucson, San Jose, Philadelphia
and Dallas.
Single-Stream Recycling is Here!
by Marti Matsch
Working to Build Zero Waste Communities
In This Issue
Pull-Out Recycling Guide
Recycle at the Curb

A
What can be Recycled and Where? B
Map of Recycling Centers
B
Preparing Recyclables

C
CHaRM Recycling Guidelines
D
Hard-to-Recycle Materials
D
Directors Corner
2
CHaRMs Newest Material:
Bike Tire and Tube Recycling
2
Microbe Brew is Back
3
Zero Waste Around The World
4
Are Your Food Scraps and
Yard Waste Heating the Planet?
4
Boulder Valley Middle Schools
Cut Cafeteria Waste
5
The Longmont Farmers Market
Goes Zero Waste
5
Zero Waste Business Profiles
6
Zero Waste Award Winners
6
Thanks to Our Donors
7

Volume 32, No. 1 | Spring/Summer 2008
One of the challenges to single-stream recycling
is the increase in contamination. Folks tend
to get a little recycling happy, tossing addi-
tional items into the bin. But, sending us non-
recyclable materials jeopardizes the success
of the whole program. Eco-Cycle and Boulder
County are working to meet a high standard
for single-stream processing our goal is to
sell our recyclables to the same markets we did
in 2007 when we were all doing two-stream
collections, and marketing some of the cleanest
materials in the country.
Please help make single-stream recycling a suc-
cess by carefully following the guidelines and
helping us keep non-recyclable contaminants
out. (Please see guidelines on page C of the
pull-out