Westin Tabor Center hotel saving scraps for the future

DENVER, Colorado – The associate Green Team at The Westin Tabor Center has announced a commercial recycling program where food scraps, liquids such as beer, milk and juice, as well as other organic materials are being collected for composting. The waste will begin its transformation into an environmentally-beneficial product starting in the Tabor Center compost area. Twice weekly, the waste will be moved to A1 Organics composting facility where, after biodegrading for four months, the compost will be ready for use as soil amendments, providing nutrients and water conservation, as well as reducing the use of pesticides and capturing carbon. The finished compost will be used as top dressing in landscaping projects in the Denver area.

“We believe that we are the first ever hotel in the city to make a committed effort to composting leftover food and liquids,” stated Chuck Schuringa, the hotel’s director of operations. He continued that the hotel’s Green Team, under the leadership of heart-of-the-house team captains chef Andrew Porte and chef Scott Burnham, has made a long term commitment to recycling and composting. The team has a goal of reducing product sent to landfills by 70% or more.

The Westin’s composting partner is Colorado’s A1 Organics, a family business that has been in the organic recycling and commercial composting business for three decades, producing high-quality compost that is beneficial to the environment. A1, the largest organic recycler and producer of quality composts in the Rocky Mountain region, has evolved from one location to six major sites along the Front Range. Annually, A1 diverts in excess of 1.5M cubic yards of organic materials from landfills.