Don’t Roll Back Denver’s Waste No More Initiative Before It Has a Chance to Work

Brian Loma

Posted September 18, 2025

In 2022, Denver residents overwhelmingly approved Measure 306, Waste No More Denver, a citizens’ initiative to mandate access to landfill diversion systems in all places where municipal services are not allowed to serve. In 2023, a task force provided a full slate of implementation recommendations to enable the citizens’ initiative to become enforceable by statute.
Waste diversion through donation, recycling, composting, and reusing materials is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to cut climate pollution and be a profitable business. Yet our policies lag far behind our potential, and proposed rollbacks to Denver’s Waste No More ordinance risk undoing hard-won progress before it has a chance to work.

A report by the nonprofit GAIA emphasizes that cities investing in organic waste diversion and circular waste systems can significantly reduce climate pollution while also creating jobs and promoting healthier communities. In Denver, our 10-year Solid Waste plan updates consistently indicate that businesses need to expand recycling and compost diversion efforts. Unfortunately, as a city, we have been slow to do so. An example of this can be seen in the three years it has taken to implement the Waste No More ballot measure.

As someone deeply involved in Denver’s Waste No More citizens’ initiative since 2021, I’ve seen firsthand how local communities are transforming the way we think about waste. In 2022, nearly 71% of Denver voters approved the Waste No More ballot measure, which put new requirements on almost all commercial properties, food producers, events, and construction and demolition projects to separate and recycle materials. Doing so sparked dialogue and built community-wide momentum toward zero waste. Since its passage, cities like Aspen have followed suit with similar strong mandates, proving this approach is scalable, achievable, and popular.

Exempting these businesses from diversion plans like donating consumable food waste sends the wrong message and delays the cultural shift we need, not to mention the impractical disconnect between revenue and waste. Diversion plans will allow for a review of shared bin systems, co-ops, and property-managed diversion. These methods are all proven models that small businesses can use to effectively divert without adding undue burdens to their bottom line.

With the rollout of Extended Producer Responsibility by 2030 for small businesses and significant shifts in the amount of landfill-bound waste, it is essential to review cost savings in waste management that will offset the costs of organic waste diversion. Exemptions should be temporary and tied to meaningful thresholds, not open-ended carve-outs that let high-waste entities opt out indefinitely.

We can look to those who have already implemented these changes since 2022, such as farmers’ markets, neighborhood festivals, and food banks, which are already leading by example with diverting food waste and recycling. But current pre-exemption proposals risk excluding them altogether, missing an opportunity to scale diversion as infrastructure improves.

Additionally, the state of Colorado has established a groundwork to assert that these responsibilities are not opt-in responsibilities but are part of the cost of doing business. Every business and department in the state has a responsibility to do its part in order to do business in Colorado. Regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are part of state statute, and landfill methane emissions are the third-largest emitter of methane in the state.

This is the point of Waste No More. By creating diversion plans that are supported by commercial systems for composting and recycling at retail food establishments, businesses, construction sites, multifamily buildings, and events, we can prevent waste from becoming pollution and creating the methane and other emissions that impact public health and our global environment.

Unfortunately, proposed permanent pre-exemptions would undermine the effort. By offering businesses an opt-in method of being responsible for waste diversion, we are missing the clear mandate that Denver voters approved. Producing clean diversion streams is an act of practice, and to build a societal shift, we need to incorporate these practices into all aspects of our community.

Denver voters decided to raise the bar for landfill diversion and significantly reduce methane emissions — and the solution is in our trash. But only if we resist weakening the rules before they’ve had a chance to work. This is why Denver City Council needs to vote for amendments to the proposed updates to this regulation, to protect the intention of the citizens’ initiative and to move into an implementation model that provides diversion access to all.

Brian Loma is the Hazardous Materials and Waste Diversion Advocate for GreenLatinos. A dedicated advocate for environmental responsibility, Brian played a key role in bringing the Waste No More Denver ballot measure to voters in 2022. He owns Cut the Plastic EMS and is an active member of Recycle Colorado & Good Business Colorado, where he serves as a board member and on the hospitality team. This commentary is republished from Colorado Newsline under a Creative Commons license.