Dive Brief:
- Denver International Airport's Zero Waste Valet trial program has diverted 69.2 tons of material from disposal in its first six months. So far, the program has achieved an average waste diversion rate of 71% compared with the airport's facility-wide diversion rate of 21.4%.
- The pilot, launched in June, offers airport concessions vendors diversion training and waste audits, as well as a collection service for each kitchen’s trash, compost and recycling materials. The program is meant to reduce kitchen staff workloads by supporting day-to-day material management, according to a news release.
- Scraps, a Denver-area composter, leads the project with support from a $495,000 Front Range Waste Diversion Grant provided by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Airport management aims to expand the program from part of its busiest concourse to all concessions in that concourse in 2025. The “long-term goal” is to extend the program to the airport’s other two concourses.
Dive Insight:
Airports handle a unique waste stream that often includes a high volume of single-use items. Airport infrastructure must manage waste generated throughout the airport as well as waste flown in from other places.
Waste reduction and diversion is a major part of the Denver airport’s sustainability plan and the airport’s long-term goal of becoming “the greenest airport in the world,” Phil Washington, the airport’s CEO, said in a statement.
“By ensuring waste is properly managed in critical areas like concessions, we are making significant and meaningful strides toward reducing landfilled waste and carbon emissions,” he said.
The airport already offers single-stream recycling, plastic film recycling and a used luggage donation program. However, it is in the process of “re-establishing” compost collection and food donation programs it says were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Denver’s Zero Waste Valet program aims to help airport food vendors improve their back-of-house operations to better divert waste and make recycling and composting easier, said Christi Turner, founder and CEO of Scraps. Most concessionaires were already recycling cardboard, but the Valet program introduced mixed recycling, glass recycling and composting.
Though the airport had previously launched composting and waste diversion pilot programs, including partnerships with specific restaurants inside the airport, Turner said the new Zero Waste Valet is the first of its kind at Denver International Airport and an opportunity “to develop innovative new protocols to overcome the unique hurdles to waste diversion in our city’s busy, massive, 365-days-a-year airport.”
At the beginning of the project, partners estimated that Concourse B produced about 350 tons of waste per month, diverting about 27% of it to be recycled or composted. Estimates also pointed to the concourse’s recycling stream having about a 50% contamination rate at that time.
Three months into the program, Zero Waste Valet staff say they have collected more compost than any other waste stream by weight. Trash is the smallest stream the team collects, according to the release. Once the program is fully up and running, Scraps estimates it can divert about 62 tons of waste from disposal a month.
The program started with three participants and now serves 19 vendors on Concourse B. Scraps said it is hiring more Zero Waste Valet staff.
The Denver airport joins other airports that are investing in recycling and waste diversion innovations to tackle waste generated by airport vendors, known as “airport-controlled” waste. San Francisco Airport aims to achieve a 90% diversion rate by 2030 for its airport-controlled waste, in part by transitioning food ware to recyclable or compostable options.
Passenger waste — including any trash and recycling passengers bring in from outside the airport — is a tougher hurdle for airports. San Diego’s airport aims to reduce passenger waste by 10% by 2035.
