10 DECEMBER 22-28, 2022 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | complete CoCo’s waste cycle. That doesn’t please Fussell or many other people work- ing in sustainability around Denver, who are trying to make composting for large portions of the metro area economically and ecologi- cally sound. If Denver is going to divert 70 percent of solid waste by 2032, as its climate goals suggest, it’s going to need many more facilities to work with. And Compost Colo- rado could be the fi rst in the city. “It took us a little while,” says Fussell, but last year, after several attempts, Com- post Colorado was awarded a $250,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to build Denver’s fi rst compost processing facility in the middle of some of the most histori- cally neglected land in America. But time for CoCo’s closed-loop plan is ticking. The project must be fi nished in two years, and Fussell has already spent one year getting the right classifi cation to apply for approval. If it fails to make the deadline, Compost Colorado will have to pay back the grant. “That’s a lot of risk,” Fussell admits. “But it’s what needs to be done. The long-term dream of CoCo has always been to be pro- cessing the waste we collect and closing the loop in Globeville. We are crossing our fi ngers that the government lends us a help- ing hand and doesn’t cause us too many unnecessary hurdles.” The CDPHE has a defi nite interest in see- ing more of these facilities built, and the grant program is a part of addressing major barriers to building them. It’s part of the Statewide Organics Management Plan completed in August, which assessed the realities of or- ganic waste management in a state where 95 percent of the waste is reusable. The report listed “location, distance needed to travel, and market surplus” as central obstacles to composting. CoCo’s circular model, urban location and built-in consumer base provide an ideal solution. That tight, localized loop of consumption, waste diversion and reuse is something that Fussell has been working toward from his time as a kid making vermi- compost bins in North Carolina. But now time is short. The city needs to rezone the land to allow for the project, and the Denver Department of Community Planning and Development didn’t even have a zoning category that fi ts the facility. Indus- trial agriculture? Retail? Landfi ll? The word “compost” doesn’t appear in the zoning code. Finally last month, CoCo successfully pe- titioned the city to have its project designated as a recycling facility, the first of its kind. Now Fussell is wait- ing for his vision plan to be approved by the city, while the CDPHE considers whether to sign off on a certifi ca- tion of designation for a class three compost- ing facility, the most stringently regulated class in the state. With a deadline of late 2023 for fi nal approval, nothing is guaranteed. Such facilities are far from shoo-ins. Boulder County, where landfi ll diversion would seem to have plenty of citizen support, tried to get one approved on an easement earmarked for open space and conservation purposes in 2021 but failed to even get to the planning department because of resident pushback and a heated land-use debate. For affl uent residents with the time to worry about what their local government might be building in their backyard, composting facilities are apparently something that still belong in someone else’s backyard. As a result, Boulder continues to ship its organic waste over fi fty miles to A1 to be processed. “Finding a site is very diffi cult for a lot of people — one that is accessible and not fi fty miles away,” says Fussell. “You’re not producing additional greenhouse gases for that haul. You are bringing it back to a local location and supporting the local economy.” With a composting facility at the ware- house, CoCo could also more closely moni- tor the waste it collects, keeping it free of contaminants. Mass processing plants struggle with contaminated compost — with plastics, glass and other hazardous materials that end up in the mix of tens of thousands of residential and business buckets, bins and dumpsters. Seven months ago, A1 Organ- ics began rejecting contaminated compost and sending it to the landfi ll. “This is a very complex challenge,” says Clinton Sawyer, marketing manager for A1. “The easiest way to remove contamination from the stream is at the smallest volume.” And the way to get there, he suggests, is by investing in more education, facilities and points of accountability for bin contents. “We need more infrastructure across the state at all levels. We know the opportunities with what we can be diverting from our landfi lls. We have to have more small facilities, large facilities, and more opportunity to give the compost back,” says Sawyer. Fussell wants to build one of those facili- ties, but he understands the very real con- cerns. In 2008, his family was embroiled in a lawsuit with a landfi ll that bordered the farm his grandmother lived on in North Carolina. The landfi ll hadn’t been lined properly and leaked pollutants, contaminating the land and ecosystems on the farm. “If not managed properly, there could be odor issues, there could be pest issues, there could be fi re issues, or pathogens when the compost isn’t cooked properly,” Fussell ac- knowledges. “That being said, there are only fi fteen composting facilities in the whole state, and that’s not enough.” CoCo could be the sixteenth. But after having gone through so much, Globeville has to be protected from any further envi- ronmental hazards, he says. “We are trying to site a waste facility in a community that’s faced a lot of environmental injustice and still faces a lot. Right next to the Platte River. That sounds not cool on paper, right?” Two blocks away, there is a metal recy- cling facility on the Platte River. “You walk over there, you’ll see a bunch of mangled cars leaching all their heavy metals right into the river,” Fussell says. Nearby is Alt Recycling, another trash transfer center that leads to “little bits of micro and macro plastics being blown around every day all over Washington Street and into the river,” he adds. A few blocks farther down is Suncor, the embattled oil refi nery that’s paid out millions in environmental lawsuits. “We have all these blatant violations of common sense, whether they are checking the boxes and crossing their t’s or not. Maybe they are. But anyone with eyes and ears and common sense can go to those facilities and say that this is gross, this is not right, I don’t want that going on in my community,” he says. Fussell is committed to a different kind of industry. “We want to show that a compost- ing facility can be located close to a river and be very safe,” he says. “That a waste facility can be great for the community.” He and his team have devised a simple plan to do the entire operation in closed mobile containers raised off the ground, isolating the process, and on top of the thick industrial foundation already built for the slaughterhouse. But they fi nd themselves having to help regulators understand their methodology, which adds time, precious time that CoCo — and the planet — can’t afford to waste. So CoCo is already working with the neighborhood. “We just spread 100 cubic yards of organic fertilizer in the community last month to rejuvenate soils, plant trees and help people beautify lawns, yards and gardens. We even got to fund a community garden here,” Fussell reports. “The fi rst year of CoCo, I lived in the facility here,” he adds, glancing around at the massive warehouse. He has twelve em- ployees, big responsibilities and a Denver Sustainability Advisory Council meeting on his schedule. “We are really trying to be a pilot that oth- ers look to when it comes to siting organics processing facilities in cities in tight urban environments,” he says. “To show that it’s not this big nasty thing to be afraid of. It can be something that’s regenerative and beautiful, that’s a value add and that gets people access to a great product and builds up that carbon sequestration.” CoCo is expanding, too. It’s purchased three additional vehicles, including a box truck and a new Rivian electric vehicle that Fussell says he got for a steal. He, like the city, is looking for more drivers. After a day on the road, I’m back at the warehouse, a little messier than before but no worse for wear, a bounty of already cooking compost in tow. The sun is starting to go down behind the evening traffi c on the highway, but you can’t hear it from the CoCo property. We tag-team the heavy lifting — hauling and storing thousands of pounds in garbage totes dispensed in small dumpsters that overfl ow by the time the day is done; there’s a larger dumpster coming this week. For the waste I’ve collected, this is just the fi rst stop; a truck headed to A1 will be here in the morning. The CoCo crew readies the depot for another cycle, cleaning the rags, stacking the buckets. They are a few thou- sand pounds closer to closing the loop today than they were yesterday, but there is a lot of work left to do. A Cooper’s Hawk perches by where the vans are parked; a live Phish album plays in the background: So toss away stuff you won’t need in the end, but keep what’s important — and know who’s your friend. So I ask you why, if I’m swimming by, don’t you see anything you’d like to try? Email the author at [email protected]. Deck the Hauls continued from page 8 COURTESY OF A1 ORGANICS Compost Colorado (left) currently works with A1 Organics in Keenesburg to process the organic waste it collects. NOAH KAPL AN
