Mayor Mike Johnston and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) have announced District 5 will be receiving compost bins in February and March of 2025.
To accelerate the compost rollout, the Mayor and DOTI have changed service to recycling and large-item pick-up. Learn more how to prepare for that rollout at: denvergov.org/CompostRollout
HOW THIS WILL IMPACT BILLING & RENTERS OPTIONS
The City will remove the credit from the next invoice after your cart is delivered and compost service begins in your neighborhood, even if you elect not to use the service. If you need help paying your bill, we encourage you to apply for financial assistance at Denvergov.org/Expandedcollection, calling (720) 944-3350, or emailing trashrebate@denvergov.org.
As you begin using your new compost cart, you may notice your trash going down! Go to Denvergov.org/Utilitiesonline to request a new cart.
If you are a renter who uses the City and County of Denver’s waste collection services, you can request a compost cart in one of the following ways:
- If the utility services for your address are registered to your name, you can request a compost cart through your Denver Utilities Online (DUO) account.
- If the utility services are registered to your landlord’s name you can request a cart by mailing back the form you received in the mail or by calling 311.
If you have limited space or minimal yard debris, you are welcome to share carts amongst neighbors. As there is no fee for the compost service, sharing carts does not impact anyone’s bill. To do so, only one neighbor needs to select the cart; those sharing do not need to take any action. However, please ensure that anyone using the cart is clear on the accepted items and that all carts are stored on private property outside of collection day as contaminated carts cannot be collected.
CHANGES TO WASTE PICK UP SCHEDULES IN 2025
Beginning January 2025, Solid Waste will modify service collection schedules, offering :
- Weekly trash collection
- Weekly compost collection
- Every other week recycling collection (from weekly)
- Every-9-week large item pickup (from every 4 weeks)
- Leafdrop program
- Holiday Treecycle drop sites
- Holiday lights recycling
- Annual Mulch Giveaway
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS FROM CITY
Composting provides an opportunity for residents to dispose of food and yard waste, decreasing the amount of trash that goes to the landfill and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
To support the accelerated compost rollout and customer service delivery, starting on January 6, 2025, DOTI will move to every-other-week recycling collection to optimize use of its resources toward diversion goals. It found that offering weekly recycling collection in 2023 and 2024 did not result in significant increases in recyclables collected, while its trucks circled the city twice as often, driving an additional 170,000 miles per year. With every-other-week recycling, the city will also reduce fuel use, which also contributes to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Another change DOTI will make in 2025 is moving the city’s Large Item Pickup (LIP) service from an every-four-week to an every-nine-week collection schedule. Offering more frequent LIP service does not support the city’s diversion goals but incentivizes waste and de-incentivizes efforts to find alternative options to throwing items in the landfill.
“These adjustments in our collection schedules will allow us to improve customer service, creating greater reliability in our collection services and improving route completion rates for trash, compost and recycling,” said Amy Ford, Executive Director of DOTI. “In other words, we pick up your solid waste the day we tell you we are going to pick it up. Today we are at 90%, and we are striving to be at 95%.”
Note there will be no changes to city trash collection fees in 2025, which are tied to the size of people’s trash carts.
Denver has been rolling out compost service at a rate of one district per quarter since late summer 2023, auditing carts and doing education to reduce contamination. In its first district rollout effort, DOTI provided a compost cart to every customer and saw high contamination rates (i.e., items in carts that weren’t compostable). In switching to an opt-in approach in 2024, where interested customers now sign up for the service, the city saw significant reductions in contamination and greater compliance with the compost program that accepts only food and yard waste, giving DOTI the ability to roll out compost at a faster rate.