Organics recycling goes green

by Elisa Cohen

SLOAN’S LAKE – Berilyn Branch has a new after dinner routine; she reaches into the garbage and sorts the organic trash from the plastics. Habits die hard. Since signing up to be in the city’s organic composting pilot program, Branch has to undo decades of garbage habits that include throwing everything but cans and newspapers into the trash can. With the city’s new green composting bins accepting food scraps, soiled paper such as napkins and cartons, and all yard trimmings virtually the only items that need to be thrown away as trash are plastic packaging.

Approximately 3300 households in different neighborhoods throughout Denver have signed up for the composting pilot. They received green composting bins that function identically to the purple recycling bins except they welcome all food scraps including meat, dairy and eggshells, all soiled paper products such as pizza boxes, napkins, coffee cups and milk cartons, and all yard debris including grass clippings, leaves and small branches.

According to Becky Goyton of Denver Recycles organic materials make up over 58 percent of all waste that ends up in the municipal waste facilities. When organic material gets buried in the landfills, it decomposes in an anaerobic manner producing methane, one of the gasses blamed on global warming. By diverting the organic material to this composting program, residents will be able to reduce these gases simply by sorting the trash. In addition to reducing greenhouse gases, the city could reduce its disposal fees for this material.

Although some residents might not think they need to participate because they already compost in their own yards, Goyton points out that most home composters do not compost meat or dairy due to the smell and the pests that are attracted to those items. She also says that people can throw their paper cups, napkins, and other soiled paper items in these bins.

After picking up the bins weekly through November and then every other week through March the organic waste is taken to A1 Organics in Keensburg, CO where it is ground up and put into composting piles. After tending to the compost for a numbers of months, the compost is then sold by A1 as one of their products. A1 Organics provide the composting services for Denver Recycles LeafDrop program each year.

A1 Organics evolved from a farming and ranching operation owned by Dwayne Wilson’s family who had homesteaded in Colorado in the late 1800’s. While operating a sheep feedlot in 1974, Wilson turned to composting the manure as a way to effectively manage the environmental issues associated with the feedlot. By the late 1980’s the business decided to focus solely on composting. Since that time A1 Organics has innovated with the composting process and is constantly evaluating “recipes” for successfully transforming organic waste into compost to be used for landscaping and farming uses. The United State Composting Council recently named Ai Organics The National Composter of the Year for developing innovative practices and products.

“This is the perfect sustainability effort, from dust to dust if you will,” said A1 Organics Vice President Bob Yost.

When asked if Yost was concerned about the potential for organic waste to be diverted to fuel grade ethanol plants in the future, Yost said A1 Organics was aware of this potential and would be involved in it as a source of feedstock for the fuel industry as it develops.

Denver is using a $215,000 grant to study the effectiveness of this waste diversion technique. Will residents continue to use the bins during the winter months when the growing season ends? Will the organic waste create an odor problem over the course of the week? Will people change their habits? To analyze these questions, Denver Recycles will count the bins that are set out on the curb each week and will weigh the bins to see how much household waste is generated during the winter.

If the pilot program proves that citizens will take the time to sort their waste, then Denver must find a suitable site for transferring the organic waste closer to Denver so that this may become a break-even method for disposing of organic material.

For information about this pilot program go to www.denvergov.org/DenverRecycles