Recycling update: SFC is trying harder

Santa Fe County ships nearly all the aluminum and steel harvested from the municipal waste stream to Colorado where Denver and Boulder are among the best cities for doing recycling right. Reunity Resources has stepped up to compost food scraps, organics, wood and yard waste for garden soil.

Operated jointly by the city and county the Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency, Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station recycles 10,400 tons of material annually and contracts with Albuquerque-based Town Recycling to run it. 

While all of the cardboard sorted out stays in New Mexico to become packaging and newspapers mixed baled cardboard, paper or containers, some of which includes both plastics and metals, are shipped to Waste Management in Denver where it is further sorted or to Mexico and is turned into egg cartons or cellulose insulation. 

Electronics are trucked to Natural Evolution in Tulsa, Oklahoma and tires go to Texas where they're shredded and added to asphalt. In 2022 the agency recycled 1,702 tons of glass or about 76 truckloads sold at $36 per ton to a Broomfield, Colorado company where it is turned into new bottles. In Pueblo, Ecologic Materials Corp. is recycling shrink wrap and adding it to asphalt.

Greater federal protection is overdue. Until that happens, Santa Fe County, along with federal managers and nearby tribal officials, should develop strategies to reduce dumping in the short term. Start with more frequent patrols by law enforcement, and be strategic. It’s also time to consider increasing fines for illegal dumping. In other words, stop littering. Stop dumping. Love the Earth — she’s our mother, right? [editorial, Santa Fe New Mexican]

A plastics to fuel refinery emitting unchecked carcinogens has plaintiffs suing the US Environmental Protection Agency.