When A1 Organics announced last year that it would stop accepting pizza boxes, cutlery, and other certified-compostable foodware from the residents of Denver, some took to Reddit to express their discontent.
“Damn,” one user wrote. “I was looking forward to occasionally composting plates.”
But what really disconcerted others was the reason Colorado’s largest composter — then contracted to manage Denver’s organic waste — decided to make the switch. According to a notice A1 published in February 2023, 10 percent of the material it was getting was deemed “too contaminated to process effectively.” In other words, it was littered with regular old plastic trash — bags, cutlery, and packaging, some of which may have resembled their certified-compostable lookalikes, but weren’t. All that junk was jeopardizing the quality of A1’s finished compost.
“Contamination is the number one challenge our industry faces in the residential and commercial organics recycling stream,” A1’s press release read. As of April 1 of last year, the c... Read more
