For winter resorts to become sustainable in operations, it’s imperative to get dirty. Aspen Snowmass’s Auden Schendler emphasizes this in his novel, “Getting Green Done,” and nowhere is this more apparent than in the waste stream. And the payback can come very fast.

Did we say stream? It’s a veritable flood-stage river. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2012 Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash. And they recycled and composted almost 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.5 percent recycling rate.
That’s not bad, compared to where we were 50 years ago. But what can be done to raise that percentage?

Recycling, now a mainstream way of life, has always been disadvantaged by sorting. It takes some effort to separate cans, bottles, and various paper stock.

Single stream or Zero-Sort recycling is changing that. No more sorting those plastic number 2s, 6s, green/brown glass, and who knows what else. Today, environmentally-minded communities and like-minded resorts are decreasing their waste stream by allowing recyclables to be dumped into one all encompassing bin.

Zero-Sort recycling, a process developed by New England waste and resource solution juggernaut Casella, has been implemented at various East Coast communities and ski resorts—among them, Sugarbush, Jay Peak, Okemo, Mt. Sunapee, and Sunday River.

This user-friendly system gained national attention when Killington began using Casella’s program in 2008. Prior to this, Killington only recycled cardboard, returnable bottles/cans, and some paper. “Zero-Sort made it feasible to expand recycling around the resort,” notes Michael Joseph from Killington. Today, during the height of the winter season, Killington averages 23 to 24 tons a month of recyclables—more than it used to recycle in a year.

Casella Waste Systems, founded in 1975, began operations in Rutland, Vermont, near Killington. In 1977, Casella built and opened the first recycling center within the state—something of a badge of honor in the notably green Green Mountain State. During the late ’90s Casella acquired another waste processing service company, KTI, and began to extend its business throughout the eastern U.S.

The company developed and began to roll out its Zero-Sort programs in 2007. Killington wasn’t the first ski resort to join the Zero-Sort movement , but its volume of recycling material was integral to the eventual opening of a sorting facility in nearby Rutland. During the first couple years of articipation, most of Killington’s volume was shipped to Massachusetts. Opening the sorting facilities in larger markets first, such as those near Burlington, Vt., and Boston, Mass., was “the crucial investment,” Joe Fusco of Casella explains. Currently, Casella has 11 processing and collection facilities across New York, Pennsylvania, and New England.

Zero-Sort recycling is made possible through the unique processing facilities that sort the recyclables. Once pick-up trucks arrive at the recovery facility, a loader pushes the recyclables onto a belt where quality-control associates eliminate non-acceptable materials. The accepted materials then go through an array of mechanized sorters. The belt-line includes cardboard sorting, glass breaker extraction, magnets to suck up metal tin cans, and finally sorting of paper products by fiber and containers—with fiber then sent to a QC area where it is ensured to paper mill specifications.

The process gets even more high-tech when the remaining containers, primarily plastic at this point, head downstream to computerized optical sorters. According to Casella, “each type of plastic has its own so-called DNA and is optically sorted by cameras, lights, and air gels.” Lastly, aluminum is extracted using reverse magnetic polarity.

Once the gauntlet of recycling is run, the sorted materials are cubed by a baling machine. The bales, weighing around 1,500 to 2,000 pounds each, are then shipped out for re-use.

All in all, it’s quite an involved process. However, relying on the consumer to sort recyclables is far less accurate, and less material gets recycled. The one-bin approach creates an easier system for consumers to use. In the long run, that saves time, money, and effort, even as it increases the volume of material recycled.

LARGE-SCALE CHALLENGES

While recycling is fairly easy in the home, it becomes much more difficult when done on a large scale and with guests who are on vacation. For example, in resorts it’s typical for the base lodge to have several waste and recycling receptacles: plastic, paper, trash, etc. However, near a lift or patrol shack, the logistics of having four bins of recyclables and waste frequently doesn’t work. It takes effort to educate guests to the recycling routine, and even which items go in which bins—it may be different than they are used to at home.

Zero-Sort, though, makes recycling as easy as tossing something in the garbage. When making the switch to this system, Fusco notes, “there is an immediate increase in recycling with our partners.” Since 2008, Killington has reduced its trash tonnage each year. Joseph notes that “overall recycling [at Killington] increased from less than 20 tons per year to well over 100 tons.” Overall waste disposal costs are down, he says, because “recycling costs are about half the disposal cost of regular landfill trash.” The single stream reduces collection costs due to a single collection truck, and allows for new materials to be added to the program.

Educating resort guests on retuning their recycling habits can present its own challenges. It’s no longer about educating them on how to sort recyclables into bins; it about transitioning to a Zero-Sort/single stream solution. One perhaps unexpected twist: guests are often skeptical that the resort is really doing its due diligence, and must be convinced that the recyclables are actually being recycled, and not simply shipped to a landfill.

At Killington, education took many forms. Several staff members toured the Casella facility and reported back to the resort on how the operation worked. Casella representatives attended meetings at the resort to further explain the process. “The challenges included educating folks on what could and couldn’t go in the Zero-Sort mix, dealing with food contamination, and determining the best way to handle the recycling in base lodges with different guests every week,” says Jason Hayden, Killington Resort’s purchasing manager. Killington used videos, posters, and signs on receptacles to inform guests. Utilizing signage that makes the bins visually appealing also attracts people to the initiative while educating them at the same time. Currently, the resort is redesigning the recycling station signs, to make the process even simpler and more appealing.

THE BIG GOAL: ZERO WASTE

Single-stream recycling is also prevalent in the mountain west. Steamboat, Colo., has upped the ante with its Zero Waste Initiative, through which the resort composts many items that are also recyclable, sorting them for composting and sending them to the local composting facility. It was for programs such as this that Steamboat earned the Golden Eagle Award for Environmental Excellence last year.

Steamboat’s Zero Waste initiative began in 2009. It uses single-stream recycling in all food and beverage outlets, and focuses on composting for all organic material and paper products. Teaming up with a local landfill, the resort also created a pilot composting program for all of Routt County.

Loryn Kasten of Steamboat explains the resort diverted on average 80 percent of organic waste from food and beverage outlets during the past year, along with 1,250 cubic yards of cardboard material, 2,500 cubic yards of single-stream recyclables, and thousands of pounds of heavy industrial metal, primarily steel from on-mountain equipment.

The Zero Waste Program is now “driving decisions that impact the environment from the beginning of the process. By purchasing appropriate materials that can be recycled, reused or composted, we are eliminating the amount of waste that goes into the landfills,” Kasten says.

One of the goals of the Zero Waste Program was to educate guests so that they could take the idea home with them. That includes the local community, too. “Steamboat’s food and beverage director, Liz Wahl, launched a community Zero Waste Initiative focused on the reduction and ultimate elimination of waste at five large-scale, public community events. These practices help spread the education tools to the entire Yampa Valley, unifying existing environmental groups and efforts, and changing attendees’ behaviors to minimize and eliminate waste,” Kasten says.

INTO THE FUTURE

The reinvigoration of recycling through single-stream programs has made a huge impact, and succeeds in several ways. It has made recycling easy to the point that operations both large and small can participate. Guests and consumers can focus on filling one bin, while the waste management company only has to worry about transporting recyclables to a single facility—likely decreasing transportation emissions, while the participating resorts can increase their recycled waste.

Enhancements like Steamboats’ Zero Waste Program, which incorporate composting into the single-stream solution, further reduce the waste stream. And community outreach, through leadership by Steamboat, Killington, and others, positively impacts the communities in which resorts reside—and it doesn’t hurt that there is a fair amount of education that goes along with these programs, getting everyone in on the process. And it does all that while saving money. Sweet!