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Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division
Solid Waste Report

The Department frequently receives requests for the amount of solid waste that is disposed of in solid waste facilities located within the state.  The following data are annual summaries by calendar year.  The data is presented to allow the user to see the quantity of materials disposed of at each site and for each county in addition to a statewide total.  The data are for the respective calendar year beginning with 1995.  The data will be updated by May following the end of a  given calendar year.

Summary and Links to Annual Data Tables
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
State Total in Cubic Yards 15,540,548 16,057,605 16,928,543 18,433,736 20,044,129 21,662,929
State Total in Tons 4,666,831 4,822,104 5,083,646 5,535,656 6,019,258 6,505,384
Solid Waste User Fee $3,219,746 $3,456,536 $3,475,300 $3,279,883 $3,007,343 $3,297,277

 

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
State Total in Cubic Yards 24,026,219 25,475,557 23,892,593 24,827,216 25,700,745 27,333,994
State Total in Tons 7,215,081 7,650,318 7,174,953 7,455,620 7,717,941 8,208,407
Solid Waste User Fee $3,266,797 $3,193,595 $3,340,437 $3,771,334 $3,856,372 $3,569,845

 

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
State Total in Cubic Yards 28,095,314 24,121,664 21,582,083 22,343,081 21,060,764
State Total in Tons 8,437,031 7,243,743 6,481,106 6,709,634 6,324,554
Solid Waste User Fee $4,658,592 $5,974,455 $4,615,727 $5,161,912 $6,647,194

 

Data Origins and Interpretation

The waste volumes presented in this report are an annual summary of volumes received under the authority of the Hazardous Substance Response Act (HSRF), 25-15-104.5 C.R.S.  The Hazardous Substance Response Fund requires that all facilities with a certificate of designation and with an attendant report their volumes to the state on a quarterly basis and pay a specified fee.  The monies that are collected under this law are split between a fund for Superfund match and the Solid Waste Management Fund.

Waste quantities may be reported and tallied by cubic yards, tons, vehicles or gallons.  All waste quantities are then converted to cubic yards based on the following conversion factors:

          0.333 cubic yard per car
          0.666 cubic yard per truck
          3.333 cubic yards per ton (based on the "average" compaction rate for household trash)
          5.000 cubic yards per 1,000 gallons
          0.75 cubic yards per ton for soil (or as calculated on a specific basis) beginning the first quarter
                   of calendar year 2003

The data presented in these reports consists of the total solid waste reported, in cubic yards, for each reporting facility, a total for all facilities within a given county (County Total), and a State Volume.  The data are for a calendar year.  It should be noted that the waste volumes are for total waste and are not just municipal solid waste (MSW).  This fact is important because national figures that are produced by the US EPA are for municipal solid waste per capita and therefore exclude certain wastes that are included in these totals.  When the total waste volume in these reports is converted directly to pounds per person per day, it is NOT equivalent to those figures released by the US EPA.

In order to approximate the national figures reported by the US EPA, certain assumptions must be made when converting the data presented in this report.  First, all facilities that do not, by the very nature of their business, dispose of municipal solid waste (i.e. construction and demolition debris, brine wastes, or tire monofills) must be totaled and subtracted from the State Total.  Secondly, it is known that traditional landfills receive wastes that are not municipal solid waste (i.e. construction and demolition debris).  Using a study from the University of Illinois (September 1996), it may be assumed that approximately 26% of materials  entering a traditional landfill are not municipal solid waste.  Therefore, the subtotal of State Total that is obtained from first subtracting out the known non-municipal solid waste facility wastes is further modified by multiplying that figure by 74%.  The resulting figure will then be approximately equal to that produced by the US EPA.  The user of these data should also be aware that the level of construction activity in Colorado since the mid-1990's may result in the 26% modifier being used herein might be too low.  There have been some indications that some landfills may be receiving 30% to 40% construction and demolition debris during the construction season.  Additionally, waste materials such as petroleum contaminated soil, coal combustion ash, and similar large volume wastes are included in the total state volume.

What follows is an example using data for calendar year 2001:

24,026,219 cubic yards disposed of in 2001/3.333 cubic yards per ton
       =7,227,650 tons per year / 365 days per year
       =19,802 tons per day x 2,000 pounds per ton
       =39,604,000 pounds per day / 4,300,000 approximate population
       =9.21 pounds per person per day - 1.0 pounds for non-municipal solid waste facilities
       =8.21 pounds per person per day x 0.74 University of Illinois Factor
       =6.08 pounds per person per day calculated municipal solid waste

US EPA national figure for 2001 = 4.5 pounds per person per day of municipal solid waste