What do food trucks, job sites, apartment high-rises, and big sports venues have in common? Trash—lots and lots of trash! This is why a new recycling ordinance for the City of Denver has come into effect!
Recycling efforts directed at the public often tend to focus on community residents. But when it comes right down to it, most of the trash a community generates comes from large businesses. This is the trash in Coors Field after a Rockies game.
It’s the waste hauled off after A Taste of Colorado food festival. It’s the rubbish from a high-rise apartment complex in Denver’s RiNo neighborhood. And more than any other business, it’s construction waste and debris.
These large operations have often escaped recycling and waste diversion efforts in the past. It is costly to separate out recycling and to provide recycling receptacles. It’s much easier to simply dump construction waste together in a dumpster or to have general waste collection areas for a big food festival.
Denver doesn’t have a great track record on dealing with recycling. Each year, nearly one million tons of Denver’s trash is buried in a landfill. But most of it is actually recyclable and compostable material.
In November 2022, Denver voters approved Ballot Initiative 306 with 71% of the vote in favor. This measure was introduced by the Waste No More campaign headed by Ean Thomas Tafoya, a Denver mayoral candidate. Tafoya summed up the reason for this initiative,
“This isn’t making people create more waste. This is waste people are already creating, and we’re diverting it.”
After the passage of Ordinance 306, Tafoya stated,
“I think this shows us what we have known for a very long time: Denver voters want climate action now.”
The ordinance mandates that large apartment buildings, food service businesses, and construction and demolition companies recycle materials or compost as much as possible. Under Ordinance 306, the businesses themselves must provide these services. The City of Denver is not required to provide any extra recycling or hauling services to assist businesses comply with these new regulations.
This new Denver recycling ordinance applies to the following businesses:
Under the ordinance, businesses that sell food, apartments, and condo buildings must provide both recycling and composting collection bins and must show that they have contracted with hauling companies that offer recycling services.
Construction sites must separate and recycle their concrete, asphalt, clean wood, scrap metal, and corrugated cardboard. They also must submit a recycling and reuse plan to the city and are subject to inspect of the worksite to determine compliance.
What this means for businesses and large landlords is that they must set up bins or collection areas for waste that can be recycled or composted, they have to contract with haulers, and they have to pay any cost associated with this effort. They also must provide signage and education on proper recycling and composting disposal strategies.
This effort aims to have significant impacts toward a sustainable resource plan for the city. According to the City of Denver’s Sustainable Resource Management Plan, industrial, commercial, multifamily, and institutional businesses contribute 46% of all the city’s refuse each year. An additional 36% comes from the construction and demolition sector. Together, this is 82% of all the trash generated in Denver.
Thus, the impact of these changes in recycling and composting activities will have a significant impact on the amount of waste that ends up in Colorado’s landfills.
An increase in recycling has proven benefits for a community, from decreased landfill usage to cutting pollution to job creation.
Before this ordinance passed, people living in multifamily housing, including apartments and condos, often weren’t able to participate in recycling or composting efforts. With no city or county requirement to provide recycling bins, many landlords simply opted out. The Waste No More initiative ensures that residents can recycle materials where they live without having to haul out their recycling themselves.
Increases in recycling cut down the amount of land and resources needed for landfills. Since construction debris makes up such a large part of landfill usage, this initiative will have a significant impact on the use of current landfills and on the future need for more landfill site construction.
Decrease use of landfills also cuts down on methane emission that arise from the breakdown of organic material at a landfill. Landfill fires are often created by such issues.
Waste materials diverted for composted materials is often contaminated by non-organic material. This is especially hazardous when glass is included in the trash that is supposed to be composted.
The Waste No More rules require both signage and education to promote proper recycling and composting services. This will lead to better outcomes when sorting trash for composting purposes.
The requirement to increase recycling and composting, especially from large businesses and events, will lead to an increase in jobs in the waste management industry in the Denver metro area.
Recycling creates an average of nine times more jobs than trash management and landfill operations. Composting operations create twice as many jobs as landfills. These are jobs and revenue that will stay in the Denver metro area, benefiting everyone.
Construction project managers will need to submit a recycling and reuse plan to the city prior to beginning work. The reuse portion of that plan can have significant benefits.
When demolition waste is reused, it reduces the environmental impacts of materials manufacturing, as fewer materials need to be created in the first place. There is also a reduction in pollution if materials can be repurposed onsite rather than shipped in from around the country and world.
Setting up recycling for an apartment building or providing recycling bins at a food festival is relatively straightforward and is a one-time action. For construction and demolition companies, these new regulations will require more effort.
All construction and demo projects must separate and recycle the following:
Clean wood and concrete means that there are no toxic substances, including paint, glue, and stain. Inclusion of these materials contaminates the load, making it ineligible for recycling or composting.
Project managers must submit a form and associated documentation of their recycling plan before a commercial or residential construction permit will be issued. They should further issue a recycling and reuse compliance form to verify their recycling efforts prior to completion of the final inspection and/or issuance of a Certificate of Occupancy.
Learning about and planning for these new rules will help make the transition to better recycling procedures onsite easier and will save money in the long run.
More information can be found at the City of Denver Waste No More website or by emailing WasteNoMore@denvergov.org.
Discount Dumpster strives to be environmentally responsible in all our operations. We offer low-cost waste handling, including disposal and recycling services. We can also direct you to proper recycling facilities!
Reach out to find out how we can help your business comply with the new Waste No More regulations. We’ll review your current setup and collaborate with you to come up with an affordable and no-hassle trash and recycling plan.
Call today to get all your questions answered!
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