The deadline for Denver apartment buildings and restaurants to begin providing recycling and composting services under a new citizen-led initiative is less than two weeks away, but city officials and environmental advocates say many of those business owners have no idea.
“I had not heard about that,” said Danna Berger, an employee of Altamira Foods.
“Were we supposed to be notified by the city?” asked Urja Paudel, owner of Holly Market.
“I have enough to worry about,” said Rhonda Banks, head chef and co-owner of The Blazing Chicken Shack II.
Those were all responses that Brian Loma, an advocate with , one of the environmental organizations that pushed for the new regulations, heard while going door-to-door in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood last week to let business owners and property managers know about the upcoming requirements.
“Nobody knows, nobody is prepared,” Loma told a Denver Post reporter between stops. “I don’t know if people just aren’t taking it seriously or if itap because I’m not the city.”
Denver’s , which passed with about 71% of the vote in 2022, requires apartments, restaurants, commercial buildings and permitted events to pay for and provide recycling and composting services. Construction and demolition projects are also required to separate and recycle all recyclable material.
The goal of the ordinance is to reduce methane emissions from Denver’s landfills by decreasing the amount of organic materials that end up there. Methane is one of the main forces driving global warming, according to the .
Denver, which has a by 100% by 2040, already provides composting and recycling pickup for single-family homes and residential buildings with up to seven units.
About 10,000 buildings in Denver will fall under the new requirements when they begin Sept. 1. More than half of those are residential buildings, according to the city. An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 of those buildings are restaurants.
An education-first approach
Denver’s Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency Office is coordinating the . Officials there said they are aware that many business owners don’t yet know about the new regulations, which require them to buy composting and recycling bins and arrange for a hauler to pick them up.
“We are doing a lot of things and all these different channels, and we know there will be gaps… and people will not necessarily know that this is happening,” said Tay Dunklee, the manager of zero waste and circular economy with the climate office, during a meeting with the City Council earlier this month.
City officials have used newsletters, social media and events to begin notifying businesses. In the coming weeks, they plan to send out letters and emails. The climate office from 9 to 11 a.m. Sept. 25 for residents and businesses interested in learning more about the Universal Recycling and Composting Ordinance.
In the next few weeks, the office will also make an online platform available for businesses to log the ways they plan to comply. Businesses will also be able to apply for exemptions from the rules for issues like space constraints, a lack of available haulers and economic hardship.
Businesses that don’t comply immediately won’t be fined, said Kelsie DeFrancia, the circular economy senior administrator with the city’s climate office.
“We have been talking about an education-first approach, which means we are trying to get the information out there,” she said. “Fines are not going to be our first response… we’re really just looking for people to be making progress towards it.”
The climate office hasn’t had much time to prepare, with the council approving final details of the ordinance last September and the administration finalizing rules and regulations in late June, DeFrancia said. Another hitch: The department is uncertain how it will pay for the program’s implementation in the coming years.
In December, the City Council agreed to allow the climate office to use revenue from the 10-cent disposable bag fee to help implement the initiative, but that fund is likely to diminish over time as more and more Denverites bring reusable bags to stores.
Businesses and apartment buildings that continuously refuse to come into compliance with the rules could eventually be cited between $150 and $999. The city’s Licensing and Consumer Protection Department will also enforce the rules by requiring residential properties and restaurants to submit a “waste diversion plan” as part of their license renewal applications.
After hearing a presentation from the climate office on their progress, Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez said she was concerned that the city doesn’t seem ready for the upcoming deadline.
“I think nothing is going to happen,” she said of the Sept. 1 deadline. “Which is not what the intention (of the ordinance) was.”
Alvidrez said in an interview that she believes city officials should have been working to notify the thousands of affected businesses much earlier.
“If it does end up going really poorly and there is no enforcement at all, (I) would definitely consider taking more action,” she said.
Attempts to create more exemptions
In 2023, Mayor Mike Johnston’s office convened a task force to make recommendations on how to implement the ordinance. Local and state governments typically make tweaks to citizen ballot initiatives once they’re approved to ensure they’re pragmatic or enforceable.
After that group disbanded, the mayor’s office proposed multiple changes, including possible exemptions for small businesses, to balance the climate-friendly goals of the ordinance with the financial struggles of local restaurants.
Under his office’s recommended guidelines, restaurants that bring in less than $2 million in revenue and have 25 or fewer employees would have been totally exempt from the requirements. That would have been about 16% of Denver’s restaurants. Small construction projects would have also been exempt.
The City Council rejected most of those suggestions and ultimately passed a final version of the requirements last September, which established this year’s Sept. 1 start date.
‘All I see is dollars and cents’
During Loma’s door-knock conversations, he said many of the local business owners and property managers have been interested in learning more about how they can comply with the requirements. Some, however, are frustrated when they learn of the upcoming rules.
“So now you want me to buy a compost?” said Banks, of The Blazing Chicken Shack II. “All I see is dollars and cents. I don’t want to be forced to bring something else thatap going to cost me money that I could use for something else in my business.”
Restaurants will be required to provide recycling in customer-facing areas and to divide up composting and recycling in their kitchens.
Banks said she’s also concerned about the new rules attracting pests near her business.
“I don’t want to be part of a mess,” she said.
Other restaurants have expressed similar concerns, according to a letter the Colorado Restaurant Association sent to the City Council.
“(The) ordinance may force Denver restaurants to make difficult decisions, such as delaying equipment repairs, postponing hiring or advancement for their staff, or reconsidering lease renewals,” according to the letter.
Their members estimate that the ordinance will cost restaurants between $200 and $450 per month.
The city will also offer some support to food service providers, including a $3,600 grant to pay for one year of composting services for some dine-in restaurants. Restaurants can also apply for a grant to help them replace one-time wares — like drink glasses, utensils and plates — with reusable ones. Fifteen restaurants will receive up to $1,000 for that purpose.
Composting for renters
Renters and residents of large multi-family condo buildings will be one of the groups most impacted by the change, as their landlords will be required to offer composting and recycling for the first time.
The opposed the 2022 ballot measure, known as , arguing at the time that 80% of the city’s multifamily rental properties already provided recycling services.
Drew Hamrick, the senior vice president of government affairs, said in an emailed statement Thursday that “every new requirement comes with costs.”
“Our residents deserve better information than they’ve received about the actual use of collected compost, and itap benefits to assess whether the cost of separate collection and the resulting added cost of compost collection is a reasonable trade off,” he said.
Michael Marquez, assistant property manager of the Holly 38 Apartments, said Loma’s visit was the first time he had heard about the ordinance. Loma explained that the property managers not only need to find compost and recycling haulers, but also develop plans to educate their residents on how to properly separate their trash, recycling and composting.
Loma said he hears every week from renters and residents of condo buildings who are excited to be able to start composting.
The city’s climate office is working on a form to allow tenants to report their building if it doesn’t have recycling and composting available by Sept. 1. Denverites can already report noncompliance at food-generating businesses to the
Loma said that while the changes could increase expenses for residential properties and food businesses, there is no “free solution” to addressing climate change. He hopes the changes will ultimately save businesses money.
“Industries are part of the solution,” he said. “Not part of the problem.”
