Colorado Just Made Recycling Free — And Honestly, It’s About Time

 Good news, Colorado! Someone else is finally picking up the tab for recycling — and no, it’s not you.

Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment has launched the Producer Responsibility Program, meaning the companies that make all that packaging your kids somehow scatter across every surface in your home are now responsible for covering recycling costs. Not you. Not your neighborhood. Them.

The Circular Action Alliance has been tapped to manage the program, collecting dues from producers to fund free recycling services for households statewide. So yes — free recycling for everyone.

The program also includes a statewide public education campaign because, let’s be honest, we could all use a refresher on what actually goes in that blue bin. (Looking at you, greasy pizza boxes.)

Infrastructure upgrades are already underway in the Denver metro area to support the rollout, and officials say the goal is to significantly boost Colorado’s recycling rate overall.

Bottom line? Less cost for families, more accountability for big producers, and maybe — just maybe — a fighting chance at teaching our kids that the recycling bin and the trash can are, in fact, two different things.

Colorado is doing something right here, folks.