8 DECEMBER 22-28, 2022 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | world of compost haulers in Colorado in that it offers a circular economy experience, com- plete with a weekly organic waste pickup and simultaneous delivery of local eco-friendly products placed in a clean, returnable bucket, eliminating excess packaging. A spring de- livery of living soil completes the waste loop — nourishing yards, parks and gardens in the metro area that clean the air, cultivate green space and act as one of the most effective carbon-capture technologies at our fi nger- tips, packing organic carbons that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere back where they belong, into the soil. “If you can do that on thousands and tens of thousands and millions of acres, that can make a huge impact on the planet,” says Fussell. I greet the other drivers I see every week. We are all the kind of people who don’t mind a day alone, listening to music, singing along with Phish and moving quickly throughout Denver’s varied neighborhoods — making one stop on this block, one on that; going through roundabouts and turning around in cul-de-sacs; stopping for coffee and strug- gling with a few hundred pounds of coffee grounds from the Starbucks on our route. Nine to ten hours of driving, hauling, dump- ing and cleaning out fi ve-gallon buckets of up to thirty pounds of organic material at a time, up to 150 times a day. I grab the keys to my Mercedes Sprinter and look at my orders. Two new households. One new apartment, third fl oor — shit. Hand- soap starter kit. Another Starbucks: That’s going to kill my time. I fi ll organic soap bottles from big refi llable drums that we use to deliver zero-waste multi-purpose soaps and deter- gents acquired from a local company, Boulder Clean, in returnable and reusable containers. While we get organized, the drivers make the small talk of colleagues readying for work: the occasional angry dog story, the rancid bucket and more surprising fi nds, and all the dramas and comedies of being out on the road all day. But we don’t waste much time. The sooner I start, the sooner I fi nish my 128 stops and 98.4 miles around the foothills. I will return with a desensitized sense of smell and nearly 2,000 pounds of compostable material that would otherwise go to a landfi ll. “Landfi lls are bad news bears,” Fussell says, “and over 40 percent of our municipal landfi ll in Denver is compostable material.” Which is pretty bad, but it gets worse. Across the world, trapped between Styro- foam and plastics, organic waste is incapable of properly breaking down without oxygen. “This produces huge amounts of methane gas, 84 times more heat-trapping than carbon dioxide,” Fussell notes, which is why food waste is one of the greatest contributors to local and global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The Washington Post recently reported that the greenhouse gas emissions of food waste are currently greater than those of the airline industry. That’s a big deal, and a big problem to solve for allegedly progressive and eco- friendly cities like Denver, which ranks among the worst in organics diversion. In 2008, a study by Denver’s Department of Solid Waste Management found that the city had an abysmal track record on landfi ll diversion. Denver barely recycled a tenth of its solid waste, and “that diversion of yard and food wastes, which constituted 48 percent of the residential waste stream sampled, have the greatest potential for decreasing landfi lled materials,” according to the department’s re- port. In response, the city approved the 2010 Master Plan for Solid Waste Management to address concerns about diversion. Since then, some progress has been made. Denver reduced landfi ll waste by 300 pounds on average per household per year. Instead of dumpsters, every household got recycling and trash bins, and some signed up for composting carts, increasing composting from 1,600 homes in 2010 to over 30,000 homes in 2022. But to- day there are 150,000 residents and businesses without composting service, and Denver still ranks low for waste diversion when compared to other cities around the country. Last year, the city diverted 26 percent of its municipal solid waste away from the landfi ll, well below the national average of 34 percent. The thing is, trash is cheap here: It costs the Denver consumer nothing to throw away most things, an expense covered by the city’s general fund. But that all changes in January. In April, Denver City Council made the fi rst update to the 2010 Solid Waste Manage- ment plan, signing into law the Sustainable Resource Management Plan, also known as Pay as You Throw. To close the carbon loop that dead-ends at the landfi ll, city offi cials are changing the economic incentive used to encourage waste diversion. Starting with the new year, the city will charge residents for the amount of trash they send to landfi lls, providing free, weekly recycling and compost services and doubling the number of recycling and composting routes a month. The more you send to the landfi ll, the more you pay. “Even accounting for Denver’s future growth, achieving a 50 percent diversion rate will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking over 600,000 cars off the road,” the plan notes. It’s a reminder for those screaming from the ballot box, or quietly muttering, in fi ts of solastalgia — cli- mate anxiety we mostly suffer alone — that waste diversion is an accessible and massive step. And Denver residents are waking up to at least their theoretical desire to see waste managed differently. In November, Denver voters overwhelm- ingly approved Initiative 306, Waste No More, an ordinance requiring that recycling and composting services be offered in busi- nesses and apartments, which the city has been notoriously slow to supply. With public opinion and policy possibly aligning in 2023, CoCo’s moment may just be ripening — like a compost bucket in the afternoon sun. But is the city ready? City Auditor Tim O’Brien had his crew check out Denver’s waste diversion program and reported in November that the rollout of the Sustain- able Resource Management Plan may be headed for disaster. “I want to see the policy succeed,” says O’Brien, “but the audit found Denver has no strategic plan [and] is short 20 percent of their driving force.” In addition, 60 percent of the city’s service trucks are old and close to decommissioning. Despite the auditor’s warning, the De- partment of Transportation and Infrastruc- ture, which is tasked with administering the plan, believes that it’s ready. According to Vanessa Lacayo, a DOTI spokesperson, O’Brien’s numbers are outdated. “We have fi lled 98 percent of all vacant positions,” she says. Additional investment allowed for a $5,000 hiring bonus, and a reclassifi cation of the driving positions created better pay. If Denver is betting big on tripling or even quadrupling its composting volume in the coming years to meet climate goals, however, it’s going to need tens of thousands of additional composting clients and drivers collecting hun- dreds of thousands of pounds of compost daily. That will require a huge investment in waste management, and the city has already poured $3.8 million into education initiatives, to teach composting in the community. “This isn’t hap- pening overnight,” Lacayo notes. “We have 150,000 people without composting service.” With both Pay as You Throw and Waste No More taking effect in 2023, there will certainly be more waste collected. What is Denver going to do with it? “We’ll take it,” Fussell says. Most organic waste that is salvaged in the metro area is currently processed at A1 Organics in Keenesburg, a 425-acre com- mercial compost manufacturer processing half a million tons of compost annually, fi fty miles northeast of downtown Denver. As a result, the compost that CoCo collects must travel fi fty miles for processing and generally doesn’t come back to Denver residents — not exactly a closed loop. Most goes to landscap- ing companies, some to farms, and some to municipalities doing park maintenance. Over 100 miles of dump trucking are currently required to Deck the Hauls continued from page 7 continued on page 10 NOAH KAPL AN Vann Fussell, working in the Compost Colorado warehouse. A compost bucket from a Compost Colorado route. NOAH KAPL AN
