Niwot Begins Journey To Sustainability
BY LIZ EMMETT-MATTOX
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If you go looking for the trash can at the next Niwot event, you’ll have a hard time finding one. Instead, you’ll find volunteers helping people sort waste into brand new compost and recycling bins.
These bins and the compostable dishes that you’ll see were purchased with grant money from Boulder County’s Community Outreach program and represent the first step in what Cottonwood Park West resident Kai Abelkis calls

“Niwot’s journey to sustainability.”

As NBA President Tony Santelli explained, the bigger goal is to make Niwot as a whole a more sustainable community. “Step one is the events. Let’s make all the Niwot events zero waste. Step two is the business community. How can the businesses in Niwot be greener? Step three is to expand to all of Niwot, the individuals. Wouldn’t it be amazing for Niwot to become the first zero-waste town? That would really be something special.”

Although the idea of turning Niwot events into zero-waste events has been brewing for some time, Santelli said the town needed some experienced leadership to help carry the project forward.
Now that Abelkis, who has 12 years of experience working as the Sustainability Coordinator for Boulder Community Hospital. is helping to guide the town through the process, Santelli is confident that Niwot will soon be known as one of the “greenest” towns around.

For Abelkis, it’s only natural to share his expertise. “I’ve been blessed to have all this experience, all this information and it’s my responsibility to share it. It’s really something to celebrate that the NBA is trying to improve their programs. It’s really commendable that the NBA is asking, how can we make these programs more in line with our values?”
Abelkis has a very broad understanding of what sustainability is and what it requires. “First of all, sustainability is a journey, not a destination. It’s not so much about recycling and composting as a management system to reduce waste.
But more than that, it’s a way of taking responsibility for our actions and aligning with our values as individuals and as a community.”
As for what it will take to make Niwot a sustainable community Abelkis said, “It’s part education, it’s part policy, it’s part infrastructure and it’s part awareness. It requires a different way of thinking about waste altogether and building the awareness throughout the community so that it becomes just how we do business.”

One Niwot business owner who has pursued the path of zero waste is Chris Warner, owner of Wi-Not Coffee Company. Warner said that when he opened Folsom Street Coffee in Boulder, they were one of eleven zero waste businesses.
Warner said, “Back then, there weren’t as many options for compostables and they were more expensive. Now the prices for compostable products are really about the same in many cases as petroleum-based products. So if it’s not cost prohibitive, I can’t really see why a business wouldn’t make the switch.”

In fact, he thinks that far from being a burden to business, going green can be good for the bottom line. “I think that our customers appreciate that we are a zero waste business. And given the choice to patronize a place that shares their values, people are willing to vote with their dollars.”
Even though Wi-Not Coffee Company has all the same compostable materials, Warner says that going zero-waste in Niwot is currently impossible because it lacks the infrastructure.

“In Boulder I have separate receptacles out behind my store for compostables, recycling and trash. Here I’m in the shopping center and they have allocated space for dumpsters, but we don’t have receptacles for our compostables.”
Santelli, Abelkis and Warner agree that Niwot is the perfect place to pursue a zero waste goal. The community is educated and committed, the business leaders are on board, and the town is small enough that infrastructure changes are manageable.

After the debut of the new bins, Niwot residents and visitors will be seeing a lot more of them at the summer concert series and at future events such as the Fourth of July Parade, Nostalgia Day and so on.
Santelli said that this year’s summer concert series will be one of the biggest learning experiences for the town. “We’re going to have to educate the residents, we’re going to have to work with the vendors, we need to have the infrastructure in place, but at the end of the day, this is going to make for an even more special event.”