DNC trash sorting a dirty secret

Garbage piles up; media not allowed to monitor composting, recycling programs

By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Javier Manzano / The Rocky

In the aftermath . . . CSU students sort through three days of trash Thursday outside the Pepsi Center, the accumulation of Democratic National Convention activities. The students were able to tote away a number of souvenirs from the historic event.

The Democratic National Convention Committee decided to keep its trash secret this week, repeatedly refusing to allow media to monitor what were billed as landmark trash-reduction programs at the Pepsi and Colorado Convention centers, even as hundreds of volunteers labored to make it work.

"We've had a significant amount of interest, and to ensure teams could do their jobs without interference, we have not allowed reporters into any of our recycling centers at the Pepsi Center or the Colorado Convention Center," said Damon Jones, spokesman for the DNCC's green team.

Behind the Pepsi Center on Thursday afternoon, as DNC party dignitaries left for Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium, it appeared that trash had overwhelmed their greening effort, with plastic garbage bags, food waste and toilet paper piled up along green mesh fences.

Student and community volunteers, wearing yellow rubber gloves and sweating in the afternoon sun, sorted cardboard and food waste into a special composting dumpster, while aluminum cans and glass were sorted into recycling containers.

The idea behind this massive effort was to allow no more than 15 percent of the total trash stream from the Democratic National Convention to reach the landfill, meaning that 85 percent of the trash generated would have to be sorted by hand into material that could be composted or recycled.

About 460 volunteers from Colorado State University were helping staff the trash-sorting effort, leaving Fort Collins at 6:15 a.m. on biodiesel buses to make the trip into Denver.

Volunteers said they had been warned repeatedly not to talk to the media but after the Rocky Mountain News toured the site some spoke of their pride in the giant recycling effort, despite the problems they had witnessed.

"These kind of events generate so much waste. I just thought sorting was a great way to get involved. But I had no idea of the complexity in this process," said student Jennifer Colvin, 24.

Throughout months of planning, the DNCC has refused to release any estimates of the amount of trash the convention, billed as the "greenest in history" would generate. About 50,000 people were expected to attend.

Early in the week, several sources said, it was clear that the volume of garbage coming out of the Pepsi Center was greater than anyone expected and that it wasn't being properly placed in the different recycling bins inside the center, bins labeled "compost," "recylables," and "landfill."

Those problems made it almost impossible for volunteers to keep up with the enormous volume flowing out of the political confab.

Another volunteer, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said convention planners had also underestimated the number of volunteers needed to run the site properly.

In addition, they said it took hours for volunteers to get through long security lines and to get to the site. DNCC spokesman Jones could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Despite problems, volunteers said they had been told they had succeeded in diverting about 70 percent of the trash from landfills.

Michele McKinney, Denver public relations director at Colorado State University, said early in the week conditions were "horrific," but they had improved markedly by Wednesday.

Conditions at the Colorado Convention Center were much better, said McKinney, who was helping coordinate sorters there as well.

"We billed this as a "get your hands dirty" opportunity," McKinney said. "It was tough. It was grueling. They did it because they wanted to help and to be a part of history."

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