Colorado’s largest consumer packaging producers will move forward setting fees on themselves and planning a statewide curbside recycling expansion launching in 2026, after the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee approved a state health department recommendation.
The JBC gave required approvals for a so-called “midrange” price and scope for the expansion chosen by state health officials after reviewing an in-depth rollout study commissioned by the packaging producers. The middle-cost scenario will require about $310 million, raised by the fees the “producer responsibility organization” set up under 2022 legislation will charge to their members.
The nonprofit producer organization, already running in other states as the Circular Action Alliance, is made up of consumer giants like Coca Cola, Molson Coors, Ball and Anheuser-Busch. Packaging producers with less than $5 million in revenue will be exempt from the fees and program.
Recycling advocates said the final JBC step pushes Colorado to the forefront of recycling expansion nationwide, and could help create a new economy of local packaging producers that run on locally recycled materials.
Colorado is only the second state to get this far in implementing a producer-funded recycling expansion like this, said Suzanne Jones of the nonprofit recycler Eco-Cycle. The state is “pioneering, creating a system that’s tailored to Colorado and which will hopefully become a national model,” Jones said.
Advocates hope the packager-funded program will push easy consumer recycling out into smaller towns and rural parts of Colorado currently lacking curbside plans, and create a universal list of recyclable items across the state.
Some trade groups and small business advocates lambasted the JBC’s approval of state recommendations without demanding more answers to lingering questions about rising costs and how effective the program might be in actually raising waste diversion rates.
Those critics had noted the cost of the middle of three alternatives in the required study shot up nearly 20% in just over a month of study revisions earlier this year, estimating a program costing $310 million in business fees a year in 2035. That early March draft assessment was up from a late January estimate of $260 million for the middle program.
The Colorado Consumer Coalition criticized the JBC’s stamp of approval this week as “authorizing the boondoggle extended producer responsibility program to continue.” Executive Director Jaime Gardner said in a statement, “This program will cost upwards of $260 million per year, fees that will inevitably be passed on to Colorado consumers at a time when inflation has made grocery runs a painful experience for most families.”
The recycling expansion plan has exempted so many packaging materials and sizes of businesses from participating, the consumer coalition says, that the program will not greatly improve Colorado’s low rates of diverting waste from landfills. A recent op-ed by recycling advocates in the legislature said Colorado was only diverting 11 to 16% of solid waste from landfills, with some states managing to recycle twice that.
“We’re disappointed that the Joint Budget Committee did not see the obscene costs to this meager return as prohibitive to this program moving forward,” Gardner said.
Eco-Cycle and Environmental Colorado, however, said the expanded opportunities for recycling will make 410,000 tons of materials available for reuse by 2035, and create 7,900 new recycling-related jobs. Jones said results from other countries that have charged similar packaging fees show costs at only fractions of a penny per package, with no impact on consumers.
The producer board said JBC approval starts the clock on the group writing plans for the fees and how expansion money is distributed to recyclers and communities, with final details due to the state health department Feb. 1.
“We are prepared to develop a plan proposal that gives all Coloradans convenient and equitable access to recycling and provides companies that are responsible for covered materials the support they need to meet their obligations under the law,” said Circular Action Alliance Colorado chair Neil Menezes.