Denver businesses now legally have to compost and recycle
Starting this week, the city of Denver is enacting its Universal Recycling and Composting Ordinance.
The ordinance began as a citizen-led ballot initiative and was approved by voters in 2022 and will require Denver businesses to recycle and compost.
"We want everybody to start making progress towards compliance," said Kelcie DeFrancia from Denver's Office of Climate Action.
The city is now asking businesses to start setting up composting and recycling services and come up with a plan for compliance.
"For buildings and food businesses, for instance, for those that have licenses, people will have to submit a waste diversion plan in conjunction with their license renewal," explained DeFrancia.
The ordinance is broad and will impact:
- Multifamily residential buildings
- Permitted events such as food festivals
- Nonresidential buildings such as hospitals and hotels
- Food waste producers such as restaurants and food processing plants
- Construction and demolition projects
"We know that this could be a potential big change for a lot of businesses across Denver," said DeFrancia. "We also know that the community is really excited for this ordinance to take place and to be in effect."
While there have been efforts to decrease the burden on restaurants, the Colorado Restaurant Association told CBS Colorado:
"Denver restaurants understand the goals of reducing waste and expanding composting and recycling in the city, but implementation of this ordinance needs to reflect the real operational and financial pressures facing our small businesses. Every local restaurant we talk to is already managing rising costs, staffing challenges, and ever-tighter margins, and new compliance expenses often create difficult tradeoffs."
On the other hand, some businesses are capitalizing on the changes.
"All of those folks are going to be onboarding with compost services like ours, and we're here to help lessen the burden," said Geneva Biggio of Break It Down Colorado.
The Texas-based composting company just launched in Colorado.
"We have solutions baked right into your service agreement where we're bin swapping and washing bins at each and every drop-off to ensure that you have a cleaner compost experience," Biggio added.
But the help still comes with a price, meaning the cost for many to do business in Denver is going up.
As far as recycling requirements for construction, contractors or property owners will be required to pay a performance security deposit ranging from $1,200 to $100,000 depending on the project.
