Eco Cycle

Information may not be reliable

Concrete and Asphalt
Construction Materials and Deconstruction Services
Cooking Oil/Grease

Our 2010 Zero Waste Holiday Guide is here! Inside you'll find our Green Gift Guide, 10 ways to have an eco-friendly holiday season, and an A-Z guide for recycling holiday-related items like light strings, wrapping paper and trees. Check it out »

Leaf and Pumpkin Collections Composting your leaves and pumpkins is one of the easiest things you can do to fight climate change. Don't give your fall leaves and worn-out jack-o-lanterns to the garbage truck this year. Check out our Guide to Fall Leaf Collections to find out what's available in your community.

The Story of Electronics This 8-minute animated movie takes on the electronics industry’s “design for the dump” mentality and champions product takeback to spur companies to make less toxic, more easily recyclable and longer lasting products.
Find out what's really behind your favorite gadgets, what you can do about it, and how certified recyclers Eco-Cycle's CHaRM are part of the solution.

Shop green this holiday season with our Tour de Thrift Boulder has more than two dozen secondhand stores for clothing, furniture, books and more. Shop these outlets first, instead of buying new, to reduce your impact on our environment, promote Zero Waste, support our local economy and save money too. Grab a friend and our Tour de Thrift map, and get started today!

Want to do more for the environment but don’t have time and aren’t sure what you can do?

The summer 2010 Eco-Cycle Times is here!
Do you know the dark stories lurking behind our culture's everyday products? Part 1 of this issue's cover story shows how just four basic products impact our global society. Check out part 2 for how these stories change for the better in a Zero Waste world. Also in this issue: how to dispose of pharmaceuticals, how folks living in bear country or in apartments can compost, why asking whether we should ban plastic bags is the wrong question, and more. Read and share the issue online »

New material accepted at CHaRM: yoga mats!
Standard yoga mats made from plastic foam, rubber foam or jute will all be accepted in the program. We will charge a $1 per mat recycling fee to cover overhead costs (in addition to the $3 facility fee), and we ask that all mats be cleaned and free of major stains before you bring them to the CHaRM. Learn more about why yoga mat recycling is important.

What happens to your single-stream recycling?
Ever wondered how we sort your recycling, especially now that it's all collected in one bin? Watch this 15 minute video on the Boulder County Recycling Center and follow all your materials through the sorting process as we prepare to send them off to be made into new products. You'll see why we created our single-stream guidelines and why it's important to keep plastic bags and shredded paper out of your curbside recycling bin.

Single-stream recycling is here! Do you know your Dirty Dozen contaminants?
Download the latest single-stream recycling guidelines, which include plastic bottles, jugs and tubs #1—#7. Help us keep the recycling stream clean by learning The Recycling Bin's Dirty Dozen, Most Unwanted Materials, like plastic bags and shredded paper.
Watch our video about plastic bag contamination »

Support Eco-Cycle and the environment with Eco-Inspired Birthday Parties for Kids! Eco-Cycle's Party with the Planet Birthday Parties combine fun activities with green values. They also support a good cause: The proceeds go to Eco-Cycle’s School Recycling and Environmental Education Programs. (A portion of the cost is tax deductible.) Now take $50 off the regular price! Learn more »

We've changed our mission to reflect a new era of resource conservation in our community. We are now "Working to Build a Zero Waste Community." Eco-Cycle is partnering with individuals, schools, businesses, governments and event organizers to make ours a model Zero Waste community for the world.
Read more about Zero Waste • Watch our Zero Waste video
See our plans for a new Zero Waste Center and a new CHaRM
Check out the Boulder Farmers' Market: Zero Waste in Action

Our Zero Waste community partners & how you can get involved

Look for these clings around Boulder and Broomfield Counties at participating businesses, schools, municipalities and in the homes of our volunteers to know who is helping us create a Zero Waste model for the rest of the world. Click on each cling to find out who is involved and how you can get involved.

Rather than looking at our production systems as one way and linear, we can redesign them to be cyclical, as in nature, where there is no such thing as “waste” and materials are kept in the production cycle. Zero Waste is emerging as a paradigm shift, a new, comprehensive socio-technical system that addresses our resource use from product design to disposal.
There are four central concepts to the Zero Waste system:

Changing the Rules to support resource recovery;
Producer Responsibility to hold industry liable for creating less toxic and more efficient products;
Purchasing for Zero Waste to use our buying power as our voice for Zero Waste; and
Resource Recovery Infrastructure to build the processing and recovery systems to move us toward Zero Waste. Learn more about all these aspects and the Zero Waste System.

View our Zero Waste video
Click on the icons above to learn more about how you can get involved with Zero Waste in our community.

Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. Chemicals are a part of our lives. But when they threaten our health and safety, we have a right to know. Every day we are unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals where we live, where we work, and where our children play. If this truly is a time of change, this is something that needs changing - now. Join the thousands of people signing on to make a change.

While we work toward longer-term, challenging solutions like shutting down coal-fired power plants and taking cars off the road, the easiest, first step that can produce significant climate results RIGHT NOW is to STOP landfill-produced methane. Simply by getting COOL — Compostable Organics Out of Landfills — by 2012, we can prevent potent methane emissions AND build healthier soils. Taking the COOL step replenishes carbon stocks and supports sustainable agriculture, yielding healthier foods for our population. The technology exists, the need is certain and the time to act is NOW. Get involved>>

It’s time to hold TV manufacturers responsible for their discarded products, just as they are in other countries of the world—including Japan, Taiwan and throughout the European Union. Learn which manufacturers are being responsible and which are not--and tell these ones to "Take Back My TV."

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. Watch The Story of Stuff and then share it with a friend.

Recycling electronics, plastic bags, books, #6 white foam, and more

Find and trade free reusable items on this online bulletin board

Everything you need to host up to 150 people. Customize your order online today.

Recycling, composting, computers, pallets, shrink wrap, and more

Choose from a variety of free online e-newsletters and recycling updates.