FAQ
What does the Four Corners Recycling Initiative do?
The Initiative is a new recycling program, started in July 2008. It is funded by a $91,000 grant from the state of Colorado. The Initiative offers recycling of three commodities – mixed paper, mixed metal, and corrugated cardboard – to schools, businesses, institutions, and the public in Montezuma County?

Doesn’t the city of Cortez already offer recycling?
Yes, the city of Cortez offers curbside pickup for city residents and a central drop-off location at the corner of Mildred and Empire Streets. Items recycled by the city are brown, clear and colored glass, newspaper, corrugated cardboard, and aluminum cans.

What is the difference between the Four Corners Recycling Initiative and the City of Cortez recycling?
The Initiative focuses on diverting large quantities of recyclable commodities from the Montezuma County landfill by locating recycling containers at sites where these commodities are produced; such as governmental institutions, private businesses, and public schools. Additionally, the Initiative offers recycling of mixed paper, which is not offered by the city of Cortez, and also includes recycling of steel cans, not offered by the city, as well as aluminum cans in our mixed metal recycling.  Additionally, these drop-off locations will located around the county in order to make it easier for residents to recycle who live in other parts of Montezuma County.   

Why is recycling important?
There are many great reasons to recycle.  First is the fact that recycling saves landfill space.  The diversion of recycled materials from the municipal solid waste stream (MSW) will greatly increase the lifespan of the Montezuma County landfill.  Approximately 34% of all municipal solid waste is paper and cardboard material.  Diverting these recyclable commodities will have a long-term benefit for all the residents of the region which rely on this landfill.  Secondly, recycling conserves natural resources by allowing products to be made from existing materials instead of extracting new, raw materials.  By doing this, recycling saves energy – and lots of it!  For instance, making aluminum cans from recycled aluminum typically reduces energy consumption by 95% over what it takes to make cans from virgin aluminum.   Another example is making paper from recycled paper products, which reduces energy consumption by up to 40%!

Where do the recycled materials go?

The corrugated cardboard and mixed paper are baled at the Montezuma County and fill and stored until they can be shipped. The corrugated cardboard is shipped to Prewitt, NM to a paper mill owned by the Durango-Mckinley
paper company. This mill processes 100% recycled cardboard in order to make new container board.

The mixed paper is shipped to a paper mill in Snowflake, AZ that is owned by the Catalyst Paper Company
This mill accepts mixed paper from around the Southwest and makes 100% recycled newsprint with the materials they process.

Mixed metal is dropped off at Belt Salvage in Cortez, where the steel cans are separated from aluminum, and each commodity is baled and sold on the metal market to whoever happens to be the highest bidder at the time.

Where are the six recycling roll-off containers located?
The Initiative has given a 30-yard recycling roll-off container to the Dolores School complex, the Mancos School Complex, the Dolores Public Lands Center, the Montezuma County Landfill, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, and the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.

Why aren’t all the recycling locations open to the public?
The Initiative’s priority was to develop recycling at area institutions and schools, because they are the biggest source for recyclable commodities. At present, there is a public recycling drop-off location in Dolores, at the Dolores Public Lands Center, in Mancos, at the school complex, and in Cortez, at the Montezuma County Landfill. Cortez residents can also use the city drop-off point for recycling.  As the program grows and more demand develops, we will work to open additional public recycling sites.

Why don’t you recycle plastic?
The Four Corners Recycling Initiative’s goal was to work with the existing infrastructure and economic framework in Montezuma County to set up a viable recycling program. The Montezuma County Landfill already possesses infrastructure to bale cardboard and mixed paper, and Belt Salvage can separate mixed metals, but the county does not currently have the facilities available to bale plastic. Additionally, plastic is a more difficult commodity to recycle, as it needs to be well-sorted in order to bring good prices on the commodities market. If this kickoff portion of the Four Corners Recycling Initiative is successful, we hope to add plastic recycling as a future option for the program.

Why don’t you recycle glass? The city of Cortez does.
At the moment, it is not economically feasible to pick up glass from six recycling drop-off locations and truck it to Durango for processing. The Four Corners Recycling Initiative is very interested in developing a local way to recycle glass, which can be turned into sand for fill, construction, insulation and landscaping material.  We are looking into crushing or pulverizing this glass material locally, which would allow us to avoid shipping this commodity to Durango.  In order to do this, we would have needed to purchase a glass crusher.  We felt that better use of the grant monies was to solidify the infrastructure that was already in place.  If you know of a way we could use pulverized/crushed glass locally, please contact us with you ideas!

What are you spending your $91,000 of grant money on?If you go to the Grant Progress page you can see an exact accounting of how we spent our grant money. The majority of the money has gone towards the purchase of eight 30-yard roll-off containers that are used at the various recycling drop-off sites. We currently have one extra roll-off container used as an empty for drop off and pick up, and one that we have not yet placed. We are also spending $6,000 of our grant money on education and outreach so that local school systems have access to educational resources to teach students about the benefits of recycling.  We are also using this portion of the budget to ensure citizens of the community are informed, through a variety of print and radio media, about the new recycling options available to them.  We have also allocated a portion of the budget to hire a part-time Outreach and Development coordinator who is facilitating the implementation of the initiative.