Recycling collection up with Denver now charging for trash collection, city says

The official who leads Denver’s recycling efforts said the city had a 12 percent increase in collected recyclable materials in the first six months of the year compared to the same time in 2022.

Nina Waysdorf, the city’s waste diversion and recycling manager, attributes that to the increase — from 19,800 tons to 22,243 tons — to new policies implemented by the city and an overhaul of its waste program. 

The city hopes to continue to trend. 

Currently, only 26 percent of trash from Denver households is diverted away from landfills in the area. That’s below the national average of 32 percent, although it’s better than Colorado as a whole, where only 16 percent is diverted.

Diversion rates measure the amount of material that is not taken to landfills. The city calculates that percentage by adding all the material explicitly collected for…