Many Steamboat Springs customers served by Apex Twin Enviro received a notice this month advising them about changes in trash and recycling services, along with price increases.

“The pricing notice was to a specific base of customers in which Apex is increasing their recycling service from every other week to weekly services ” said Lacie Coupe, Apex Twin Enviro general manager. “The service increase to those that received the notice is a proportionate increase to their current rate.” 

She added that the changes are being made to increase recycling volumes and increase diversion, mitigate confusion and offer convenience, and to align frequency across the market to implement efficient routing operations to reduce truck traffic and lessen environmental impact.

Apex, which purchased Twin Enviro and Waste Management’s operations in Steamboat Springs in July 2024. They said this move will help make service options more consistent for 8,000 customers the company serves in Routt and Moffat counties.

“We are really investing and trying to drive the diversion and the recycling volumes,” Coupe said. “With more frequency and consistent pickup frequency on the recycling service, we think we’re going to drive a higher diversion volume through the recycling facility, and less into the waste stream.”

The increase for residential service for customers who currently pay $52 for weekly pickup of a 95-gallon trash container and every-other-week pickup of a recycling container will go up to $70 per month. Instead of every-other-week recycling, that customer will now have recycling picked up weekly. Customers who opt for this service but with a smaller, newly offered 65-gallon trash container will be billed $58 a month.

Customers who received a bill for May service will receive a mid-cycle invoice that reflects the difference in price associated to the service increase.

“Obviously across the two companies, there’s people that pay different rates depending on variable factors including location, frequency, additional containers and some people have walk up valet services, so that (price-change) notice doesn’t apply across the entire customer base,” Coupe said. “We have a service increase and the rate is proportionate to that current service rate.”

For the first time, Apex Twin Enviro will offer customers a choice between the 95-gallon wheeled container and a smaller 65-gallon wheeled container at a reduced cost. There will be a $20 one-time fee to cover the expense of switching the containers.

“For customers that feel like they produce less trash volume we’ve offered an option to reduce your rate by reducing your trash volumes into a 65-gallon container, instead of the standardized 95-gallon containers,” Coupe said.

Scott Lukach, president at Apex Waste Solutions, hopes the changes at Apex Twin Eviro will entice people to use the smaller container and reduce the amount of waste headed to the landfill while also increasing the use of recycling services.

“We are offering an incentive for people to generate less waste to some degree” Lukach said. “If they say, ‘Now that I get recycling service every week I can move from a 95-gallon to a 65-gallon for trash, because I generate less’. That’s kind of the foundation of recycling, if you’re recycling more and generating less, residents can tap into that.”

Steamboat Springs City Council member Amy Dickson said she has received a few calls from city residents concerned with increased pricing on their combined waste and recycling services. She said she has reached out to Apex Twin Enviro to better understand their plans for the rate increases and new service options.

She was also hoping to get a better grasp on the waste management landscape in Steamboat Springs as the council continues to discus a Pay-As-You-Throw model where residents are charged based on the amount of trash they dispose of each week.

“At (a recent) council work session … we talked about looking at a Pay-As-You-Throw trash program in Steamboat, and at that time council directed staff to continue looking into it,” Dickson said. “We’re really interested in this option, and providing different options for the size of your trash can, and then the pricing as well. So at that point, we gave a staff direction to look at a municipal contracted trash hauler, where we would put out a (Request for Proposal). Nothing, has been finalized, but that’s at least a direction we’re looking at right now.”

Currently the city of Steamboat Springs requires residents to use a combined trash and recycling service, but the county does not have a recycling requirement. Apex Twin Enviro said it will continue to offer every-other-week recycling to county residents.

Apex Twin Enviro also has municipal contracts with the town of Oak Creek and Hayden and provides service in Craig.

Residents can also choose SRC Recycle and Refuse, a small, family-owned and operated company that provides weekly residential trash service and household recycling in Steamboat Springs, Stagecoach, Yampa, Phippsburg, Oak Creek, Milner, Toponas and Wolcott

“Moffat County really doesn’t do recycling right now,” Lukach said. “I think with EPR, down the road, they might say, ‘Hey, it doesn’t change your bill, and you’re going to get recycling, and that’s going to help stand up the recycling equation. In Steamboat Springs there is more volume, we’re going to get more people participating in recycling and that’s what we’re building for the future. We’re investing in the future.”

Michelle Stewart, executive director of the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council, said Apex Twin Enviro does not inform the council about price increases, service changes or how the company is attempting to make the economics of recycling work. She said the company does support waste diversion and is actively working to increase recycling across the state.

“They are underlining that recycling is not free, and it’s actually quite costly particularly in places like Northwestern Colorado just because we have a long distance to travel in terms of taking materials from the recycle bin to the processing facilities,” Stewart said.

Apex Twin Enviro is investing in its Steamboat Eco Center, located in Milner, hoping to streamline and improve efficiency of its recycling efforts. The company wants to be prepared for an increased level of recycling in the future. When finished, acceptable recycling materials are expected to include plastics labeled 1 through 7.

Legislation like the Extended Producer Responsibility, an environmental policy where manufacturers are held accountable for the entire lifecycle of their products including end-of-life management and recycling, could also boost recycling in states like Colorado, where EPR is expected to go into effect in the near future.

“They are making investments in their recycling infrastructure in order to increase the volume of materials that they can process, and they see that as an important way to increase recycling success in the region,” Stewart said. “With that comes the opportunity for them to encourage more participation, and ultimately more recycling. That is going to be very important for producer responsibility, and ultimately having recycling be supported financially by these state opportunities to leverage EPR funds.”