Wompost composts at Rock & Rails

Niwot’s annual Rock & Rails is partnering with an eco-friendly compost and delivery service known as Wompost this summer. Wompost is a women-owned business founded by Carolyn Pace in 2018.

Pace was frustrated that there was no composting pickup service in Aurora, so she decided to launch her own business as the one and only employee at first.

Now, Wompost provides services not only in Aurora, but also in south Denver, Greenwood Village, Centennial, Englewood, Cherry Hills, Southglenn, Littleton, and Commerce City. They do not normally service Niwot, since the company requires at least 100 customers from any zip code to provide its services. But Wompost made an exception for Rock & Rails. Residents can sign up online for home service and will be notified if Wompost has enough interest to provide its services to Niwot.

Wompost collects food scraps and yard waste once a week from customers’ homes and businesses and brings back up to 60 gallons of finished compost soil per year. Wompost also provides easy and affordable drop-off sites throughout their service areas and sells compost soil in bulk.

Wompost collects the compostables every Friday morning after a Thursday Rock & Rails concert. Niwot discontinued its composting operations with Western Disposal after A1 Organics changed their composting rules to prohibit compostable cups and utensils, due to problems with contamination. Rock & Rails continues to use Western Disposal for recycling services.

Rock & Rails uses student “Gargoyles” perched on top of recycle and compost bins during the concerts to make sure items go in the proper container. Wompost solved the contamination problem by providing locked containers which prevents contamination after the event, which has been an occasional problem in the past, with a few patrons of the Niwot Children's Park dropping dirty diapers and other trash in the compost bins.

The Niwot Cultural Arts Association and the Niwot Business Association take pride in making the concert series a “zero-waste” event. The option of putting cups and utensils in a trash container was not appealing.

Vicki Maurer, one of three co-managers of the event, explored various options, including purchasing reusable cups, which would have to be collected, cleaned and returned each week. “The cost increase would have been significant,” Maurer said. Michael Springer of Gunbarrel approached the managers about using Wompost, and the connection was made.

“We do a lot of purposeful work around here,” said Wompost employee Po Geenung. “Unlike Western Disposal, we provide compost to our customers, because we care about creating healthy gardens and creating a healthy planet.”

Wompost is also a member of Zero Foodprint which promotes regenerative farming. Wompost contributes 1% of their new revenue to Carbon Farming Projects here in Colorado. Right now, those funds go to McCauley Family Farm in Longmont which will apply the funds to purchase and apply compost to 20 acres of degraded rangeland and plant perennials.