Data and Reports

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