Keeping the Bags Together at 35,000 Feet (and Ground Level)
How Scraps Zero Waste Valet program at Denver International Airport relies on EcoSafe to keep organics moving through one of the country's toughest back-of-house environments
| Partner | Scraps (Zero Waste Valet program) |
|---|---|
| Sectors | Airport food & beverage concessions, hospitality, foodservice |
| Locations | Denver International Airport, Concourse B — Denver, CO |
| EcoSafe products | EcoSafe® certified compostable liner bags |
| Results | 40 food & beverage operations served across half a dozen concessionaires; compost collected 3–4 times daily by hand across a high-security, high-volume airport environment; a marked drop in bag failures and back-of-house messes; expansion underway into Concourses A and C and the Jeppesen Terminal through 2028. |
About Scraps
Scraps started nearly a decade ago as a compost hauler for small apartments and households in the Denver metro area who didn't have access to composting literally hauling bins by trike. The company has since grown into a full-service operation running CDL trucks across all of Denver metro, alongside a zero waste events program that broke 100 events this year.
WHERE IT STARTED
The Denver airport is where the Zero Waste Valet was born. Launched in May 2024, the Valet is Scraps' dedicated team operating inside Denver International Airport, currently servicing Concourse B with expansion into Concourse A planned for early 2027, Concourse C by the end of 2027, and the Jeppesen Terminal (the hub handling baggage claim and ticketing) by early 2028.
HAULER, DISTRIBUTOR, PARTNER
It's a program that, in director Randi Zimmermann's words, doesn't fall neatly into any predetermined industry category...it functions as hauler, distributor, and zero waste services provider all at once, working alongside Republic, the airport's separate compost hauler.
PROVEN PARTNER
Scraps was chosen as the contractor due to two factors; their extensive zero waste events program and their long-standing commitment to customer engagement, education, and partnership.
Why Scraps chose ecosafe zero waste
Scraps has tested a range of bag brands over the years, and the team consistently comes back to EcoSafe Zero Waste for one reason: durability. In an environment where bags are lifted and hauled by hand multiple times a day, sturdiness that hold up under that handling, and doesn't degrade before pickup, directly determines how smooth or how messy a shift is.
The Challenge
Running an organics program inside an active airport comes with constraints most composters never have to design around. Concessions operate under roughly half a dozen different concessionaire umbrellas, each with its own staff, distributors, and purchasing habits. There's no single system to plug into. High staff turnover and strict security clearances (limiting who can access back-of-house waste areas) mean the Valet team, not concession staff, ends up physically responsible for getting compost from kitchen to truck.
That responsibility is done almost entirely by hand. Some restaurants generate 200–300 pounds of compost a day, and the Valet team is physically lifting and hauling bagged food scraps (not tipping toters), three to four times daily. Compostable bag failure isn't a minor inconvenience in that environment; a dissolving bag, a loose seam, or a split at the bottom creates a mess in a restaurant's back of house and for the team hauling it, and it's a problem that has to be resolved in the moment.
Compounding this, concessions don't always control what bags they buy. Many purchase off Amazon or Costco, where bags labeled “eco-friendly” or “bio-friendly” are often not certified compostable at all, it's a greenwashing problem that creates real confusion on the ground. Others order through distributors like Shamrock, where availability isn't always consistent. When a concession runs out of certified bags, the fallback is plastic, and Scraps refuses any load that shows up in plastic.
The Solution
Because concessions largely choose their own compostable bag suppliers, EcoSafe's role has centered on education and consistency rather than direct distribution. When the Zero Waste Valet program launched, EcoSafe was one of the first outside partners Scraps brought in, providing starter rolls of commercial compostable bags to new concessions to get them started on the right foot.
From there, the partnership has supported an ongoing education campaign across the program's 40 food & beverage operations, covering what does and doesn't belong in compost, what a genuinely certified compostable bag looks like (versus a greenwashed one), and even right-sizing bag orders so concessions aren't overspending on oversized bags for bins that don't need them. Scraps built a compostable bag ordering guide for its concessions with QR codes linking directly to EcoSafe, making the certified option the easy default even when a concession is buying through its own distributor. The team has also worked directly with EcoSafe contacts Zoe and Gary throughout the rollout and ongoing support.
The Results
The clearest impact has been a reduction in broken bags and the cleanup that comes with them. In a program moving hundreds of pounds of compost a day through manual handling, bag sturdiness isn't a nice-to-have, it's what keeps kitchens clean, keeps the Valet team's collection routes moving, and keeps loads from being rejected downstream. Where concessions use a lesser-quality bag through their own distributor, the Valet team is still troubleshooting workarounds on a near-daily basis (reinforcing by contrast), how much friction EcoSafe removes when it's in place.
What's next
Scraps is now considering whether the Zero Waste Valet should stock its own EcoSafe back supply, giving concessions a way to grab a box on short notice instead of running out between orders. It's an idea still in early discussion, but one Randi sees as a natural next step for closing the small supply gaps that come up in a fast-moving airport environment.
In the nearer term, the program's focus is expansion: Concourse A in early 2027, Concourse C by the end of 2027, and the Jeppesen Terminal in early 2028, with Scraps hopeful that sustainability planning gets built into any future concourse construction from the start.
