For the last couple of years, the City of Denver has struggled with improving its recycling rate, which continues to hover around 18 percent. In 2016, the city expanded its composting program with the hope of easing the burden on the city’s landfills. But despite that effort, the City of Denver’s recycling rate did not increase.

At the beginning of this year, the city announced that it has budgeted $3.3 million to add more recycling and composting routes and to fully switch from dumpsters to carts by 2018. And now, a new study conducted by nonprofits Colorado Public Interest Research Group and Eco-Cycle reveals that composting is the key to improving the city’s recycling rate.

Approximately 50 percent of the waste that a typical Denver resident produces is compostable, but currently only 6 percent of Denver residents have a green compost bin that’s collected by the city every other week. The two nonprofits are encouraging the city to expand its composting program to every household to finally improve the city’s recycling rate.

Colorado Public Interest Research Group has more details:

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