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Waste Connections is requesting approval of a Conditional Use Permit (CU-130-23) to allow recycling facilities in an I-3 zone district.
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Summary & Background
Waste Connections is requesting a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to allow recycling facilities in an I-3 zone district. The site, 4150 East 60th Avenue, previously contained extensive heavy industrial uses in the form of a bio-diesel refinery and methanol plant. The property is now vacant and was purchased by Waste Connections in 2022.
The applicant currently operates out of their Denver headquarters at 5500 Franklin Street with 400 employees. They picked the property at 4150 East 60th Avenue to expand their recycling volume and office operations within the Metropolitan area. The former brownfield site’s centralized location and proximity to highways, interstates, and freight rail appealed to their goals of further reducing the carbon footprint of their operations.
For the site itself, they will be utilizing and repurposing three existing buildings on the site and demolishing six of the existing structures. A new 71,600 square-foot Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) will be constructed to process the recycling operations in the interior of the building. Waste Connections will be recycling paper, plastic, metal, glass and cardboard at this facility. The MRF is a state-of-the-art enclosed building that mechanically sorts the materials using robotics and A.I. technology to quickly process and ensure quality control with the materials being sorted. The mechanical nature of the technology allows the facility to recycle at a higher volume. The ability to process and recycle materials at a higher volume means less waste diverted to landfills and more materials repurposed for secondary use.
The applicant will also be constructing a scale house to weight incoming and outgoing materials and adaptively reuse the other three existing structures for office and maintenance uses. The overall ...
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