Single-stream recycling is designed to be simple: Everything into the same recycling bin, which you then set out on the curb, or take to the local drop-off center.

Waste Management picks up your bottles, cans, paper and cardboard and combines it with the yogurt containers, milk jugs and empty boxes from across the valley, then loads it onto a semi-truck to Denver to be sorted, packaged and sent out to be re-purposed.

This dump-it-all-in-one-spot system is based around a key, human desire.  

“I mean, single-stream was a convenience," said Jose Herrera, the plant manager at the Denver facility where Waste Management sorts residential recycling. "And now that is kind of creating some other issues that we probably didn’t see 10 years ago.”