It’s no secret that tourism propels the economy here in the Vail Valley. World-renowned skiing, access to breathtaking mountaintop views, hiking, mountain biking, a lively community — who could blame ‘em? Not only does our economy, the traffic on I-70 and the parking lot of City Market experience the ebb and flow in the number of people coming and going, our waste management system does too.
When researching this topic, Amelia Kovacs came as a highly recommended wealth of information. Kovacs started with Walking Mountains Science Center as an intern and now fills the role of sustainability programs manager at the environmental learning center based in Avon. Kovacs’ role is fully dedicated to waste diversion and sustainability.
“[In this position] I think that there’s a lot of opportunity to connect people who are passionate about waste diversion in Colorado, Eagle County and the mountains,” Kovacs says.
When it comes to specialized waste management, Vail Honeywagon is a main source for most of it in the Valley, including compost processing. Honeywagon certainly sees the impacts of increased traffic when it comes to the amount of compost produced season to season.
For January, February and March of 2023, Vail Honeywagon reported that they averaged around 430 yards of food waste per month. For April, May and June the average was 194 yards per month.
That means food waste more than doubles in our busiest months of the year, and that’s not the only part of our waste stream that is doubled in comparison.
“The average amount of waste produced per Colorado resident each day is four and a half pounds,” Kovacs explains. “What they found in Eagle County is it’s close to 10 pounds every single day per person. A reason behind that could be tourism.
“In 2022, we saw a 31.4% diversion rate for Eagle County, meaning of all the waste we produced, 31.4% of it was diverted from the landfill — recycled or composted, or brought to the hazardous waste facility,” adds Kovacs. “The state average is 16% and the national average is around 31%. We are clearly above the state average, but there is always room [to improve].”
So, let’s rewind … even though the average Eagle County resident produces double the waste of the average Coloradan and we double our food waste per month in the busiest seasons, we still have nearly double the state average in waste diversion rates? Yes, you read that
right! The dedication of our sustainability leaders is what can be credited with this feat — and a feat it is.
ADVENTURE SOURCE + EDUCATION SOURCE = ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY FOR ALL
Jake Lehew is the Eagle County sustainability manager for Vail Resorts and has a big hand in the game when it comes to the economic responsibility of the resorts here.
“Our waste criteria and waste streams are so different county to county, let alone state to state,” Lehew says. “What we’re able to compost or recycle here in Eagle County may be different here than Summit County or Denver, or let alone Nebraska, Utah or any of the surrounding states. That’s been an interesting thing to work around — how do we manage that knowing our guests are coming from all over the country and the world?
“We’ve had a lot success at our restaurants at the employee-centered waste sorting stations,” he adds. “It’s where we have a lot of control and maintain a really clean stream. This gives Honeywagon a really good compost product because there’s not as much contamination.”
When you finish your summer lunch at Spruce Saddle restaurant and you see a Beaver Creek employee at the disposal station ready to take your tray — that is an example of employee-centered waste sorting. By training Vail Resorts staff in proper waste management practices, it takes the responsibility into their hands, ensuring that it is done correctly.
While being a hub for adventure and experience for people all over the country and the world, Eagle County is also in the position to be an education source, Kovacs reminds us.
“We offer quarterly community recycling tours with up to 20 participants. We had 15 tours last year so you can definitely request a private tour if a business or group is interested. We reached around 200 participants in 2023,” shares Kovacs.
“We actually have a lot of those who are visiting go on our recycling tours, so we are able to educate people on why we accept different things in Eagle County opposed to other states,” adds Kovacs. “Most people are pretty excited about it and are like ‘we wish we had this back home!’”
THE WIZARDING WORLD OF WASTE RESPONSIBILITY
Businesses are making a difference in our community, but there is also an integral element of individual responsibility that comes in to play. In 2018, Walking Mountains created the Waste Wizard app, a helpful tool when it comes to residential waste diversion. The Waste Wizard app allows you to input the item you have in question and directs you to the proper waste stream whether that be recycling, compost, trash or hazardous waste.
“The purpose of the app is to provide education to individuals so that they can make informed decisions about recycling. The app aims to eliminate ‘wishful recycling,’ which refers to the practice of placing items in the recycling bin that are not actually recyclable, but one hopes or believes they are,” Kovacs explains. “It’s supposed to connect the user with the resource to make an educated decision.”
Since the app was created in 2018, there have been over 74,000 material views and 44,000 user sessions with top material searches including television, mattress, Christmas trees and refrigerators, Kovacs reports.
As the app and the program began to grow, Walking Mountains realized that they were lacking on one element — access to and use by the Spanish population. Walking Mountains went to work with their developers to create a fully Spanish version of the app.
“We started the English-to-Spanish marketing campaign last year to increase our Spanish-speaking users. With that we were able to have over 500 downloads of the Waste Wizard in Spanish. As the goal was to increase Waste Wizard downloads, this certainly achieved our goal,” Kovacs says.
In addition to encouraging individual responsibility, Walking Mountains continually engages and aims to educate the community with their involvement with events such as GoPro Mountain Games, Birds of Prey World Cup and many others.
“We’ve increased our zero-waste events a lot! I think we were only at 70 days of events in 2019 and now we do about 120 days of events,” shares Kovacs.
If you’re heading to GoPro Mountain Games this June, make sure to swing by the waste management and sorting stations throughout the festival to see the team in action! They are eager to have conversations about proper waste diversion practices and field questions from the community.
When you take out your trash and recycling this week, or see a piece of garbage on the ground, think about the systems in place in our community and the continual development required to keep our growing and fluctuating community healthy.
