Living in Colorado

Denver’s government has expanded its composting program to cover the entire city, city officials announced Recently.

Every household that is eligible for municipal trash and recycling services — about 176,000 in all — are now eligible for compost pickup, too. This is a major expansion of the city’s composting program, which keeps organic materials such as food and grass out of the landfill. 

However, you’ll still have to sign up and pay specifically for compost pick-up. Compost service is $29.25 for three months or $107 for a year — so, a pretty decent discount if you pay annually. You can sign up here.

Enrollment is limited, so it’s possible that you won’t be allowed to sign up if you wait too long. As usual for Denver, large multi-family buildings and businesses are excluded.

As of now, about 12,000 households get composting service from Denver. City staff expect that this move will boost that figure to about 18,000 by 2018.

Currently, Denver only gets about 20 percent of its residential waste recycled. The national average for municipalities is 34 percent, according to the advocacy group CoPIRG. Denver aims to get to 34 percent — the national average — by the year 2020. 

Read more about this compost expansion program on the Denverite.