Terms of Service

These Terms of Service apply to all Compost Colorado residential and community drop off members.
 

Terms of Service

By signing up for Compost Colorado service via StopSuite, you agree to the following Service Terms:

Kindness & Mutual Respect.

Compost Colorado rests on a foundation of kindness and mutual respect. We will always treat all team members, customers and partners with kindness and respect, regardless of race, color, religion, belief, gender, identity or otherwise.  We expect the same of our customers. We value our employees and we reserve the right to discontinue service and refund prorated membership fees to any customer who does not treat our employees with professionalism and courtesy. 

Email Communication.

Compost Colorado may add your email, name and other information to our Compost Colorado Membership email list, hosted on StopSuite. We will use this channel to send you your initial welcome email, and to periodically contact you via email regarding your Compost Colorado service, and other news and events related to Compost Colorado. We will not share the information from our email list with any external party.

Other Communication.

Please use your CoCo Portal to submit a service request or other inquiry/question/feedback. We provide our phone numbers as an additional way to access us, but with the nature of our work and our small team, we are often difficult to reach by phone. We consider our Customer Portal the most reliable and secure way to communicate with our Members and document our communication history.

Payments.

If you sign up as a pickup or drop-off customer with Compost Colorado, the credit/debit card or ACH information you provide to Compost Colorado via StopSuite will be billed monthly.

Payment Information.

Your payment information is securely stored with Stripe, the third-party online pay processor embedded in StopSuite, which is the platform used by Compost Colorado to manage all online payments for Compost Colorado members. You are encouraged to protect your login and password as you would with any other online transaction portal.
 

Pickup Schedules.

Your Compost Colorado service will happen on a specific day or days each week. While we cannot guarantee pickup times, we will always perform our pickups between 7:30 AM  and 5:30 PM  unless otherwise noted.

 

Occasionally Compost Colorado needs to reorganize routes and change a Member’s pickup day or days. If this happens, we will always inform you ahead of time to allow a reasonable amount of time for you to adjust.
 

Pickup Rules.

Curbside

Please leave your bucket at your curb by 7:30 AM each pickup day. If the pickup spot that you and/or your property manager and/or HOA has designated is not in a safe or reasonable area, please contact Compost Colorado to see if a mutually agreeable alternative can be arranged.  Although our goal is to not have bins stolen or defaced, please understand that it is not feasible for us to customize every location that we service

 

To enable us to serve you most effectively, please observe the following guidelines:

• Use a compostable bag in your bucket at all times. Please use the liners that Compost Colorado provides with your service, or purchase additional liners through the online store accessible from your customer portal.

• Do not overfill your bucket

• Tie your bag.

• Clean your bucket between pickups.

• Remove your bucket from its pickup spot at the end of the day, after Compost Colorado has emptied it.

• Inform us whenever possible if you will not be setting out your bucket for us on your pickup day, preferably by using the "Skip" feature in your member dashboard.

• Inform us if you will be out of town or otherwise not setting out your compost bin for an extended period of time.

 

If your bin is consistently overfilled, we will suggest that you upgrade your service level to a larger size. If you do not upgrade, and continue to overfill your bin, we will inform you via email with a reasonable amount of lead time that we will be upgrading your service level at your next billing cycle, and we will then change you to a higher service level.

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Weather & Safety.

Compost Colorado places a premium on the safety of our team. We have the training and the equipment to run our pickup service in all manner of inclement weather.  However, on occasion we will not run our routes due to extreme weather, storms, and/or unsafe commuting conditions. Compost Colorado often follows the lead of local school districts when making the decision to cancel or postpone our service routes.  Temperatures below 10 degrees Farenheit can also cause routes to be canceled or postponed because compost material can stick to the buckets under these conditions making them very difficult to service.  In all of these circumstances we attempt to notify our customers as early in advance as we can so that buckets aren't placed curbside unnecessarily.

 

If your route is canceled and cannot be rescheduled, you will be issued a $5 Skip credit for the week which will be applied to your next invoice.  During the few service days this might happen per year, we encourage our curbside customers to make use of our many drop off sites.  Information about accessing the drop off sites is available on your portal.  Another option is to  leave extra material out for the following week's service at no extra charge. 

Missed Pickups.

On rare occasions, Compost Colorado may miss your scheduled pickup for reasons other than weather. This is generally due to a mechanical failure, staff emergency, or other exceptional circumstances.  We are a small company with a small fleet, and unfortunately this means that once in a while we simply don’t have the means to cover missed pickups.

 

If we are running late and/or in danger of missing your pickup we will reach out via email to update you with our status whenever possible. If we ultimately miss your pickup on your pickup day we will make every effort to reschedule for the following day (or as soon as possible), and we will inform you of this change. If an unreasonable amount of time passes, or an unreasonable inconvenience is posed we will issue you a commensurate credit / refund on your account.

Community Drop Off

Community Drop Off members may dump up to 5 gallons of food waste per week. Totes may be accessed at any of our community drop off locations. Please use your 4-digit membership code to unlock the bin, dump your food waste, and relock the bin. Please be sure to relock the bin so non-members do not dispose of contamination waste. See our website for the most current available drop off locations. And remember, if you see any contamination in the bin, please help us by removing it!  

Lost, stolen, or missing buckets & lids.

If your residential bucket is stolen or otherwise disappears, we can replace it for you at cost. We will endeavor to locate a “pickup spot” that minimizes the risk of theft, and we ask that you only use your CoCo-branded bucket to help deter theft or accidental disposal.

Late fees.

If you fail to make a payment (i.e., if your card on file cannot be charged at the time of auto-pay), you will receive an email from your CoCo online portal on that day asking you to update your payment information. We will follow up with another email during the month. If, at the end of the month, you have not brought your account balance to current, we will suspend your service until your payment information is updated and your charge paid, and we will also assess a small late fee. The late fee is 10% of your monthly membership fee (subject to change).

Contamination Fees.

Contaminants such as plastic, non-compostable containers, aluminum foil, latex gloves, produce stickers, etc. are extremely harmful in a compost pile and increase the risk that entire loads will be landfilled. Compost Colorado is dedicated to minimizing contamination among its customers’ compost by providing free training, regular communication, and ongoing education, as well as pickup schedules optimized to each customer’s needs.

 

However, if we note and communicate consistent contamination over the course of a few months, and we have coached on strategies to resolve the issue, yet contamination continues, we may assess a fee. This will only be after an extended period of consistent contamination without mitigation success. Before we assess a fee, we will send you an email letting you know that the contamination issue must be resolved in order to avoid a fee at your next monthly pay cycle.

 

After one warning / nudge to fix things, we will charge $5 per incident for residential contamination.

 

We regret having to do this. But it is tremendously important to us that our members and our company not send plastics and other trash to the compost facility – where it will compromise the quality and safety of the soil being produced by your compost.  . We are committed to taking proactive steps to prevent and eliminate contamination from the outset and throughout our service, and we will exhaust these measures before contemplating a fee.

Compost Colorado Cancellation Policy:

Cancellation Terms:

Customers of Compost Colorado may cancel their membership at any time before their upcoming billing cycle to avoid further charges. However, please note that membership fees will not be prorated for the remainder of the billing period upon cancellation.

Cancellation Notice:

To cancel without incurring additional charges, customers must provide notice at least 1 week prior to their next billing cycle. No next-day cancellations will be accepted.

Bucket Collection:

Upon cancellation, Compost Colorado will arrange to collect the customer’s compost bucket on the last route day following the cancellation notice.

Bucket Retention Fee:

Customers who choose to keep their buckets upon cancellation will be subject to a $10 bucket retention fee. This fee will be billed separately and must be settled promptly.

Cancellation Process:

1. Customers must submit their cancellation requests before their upcoming billing cycle.

2. Cancellation requests must be made at least 1 week in advance to avoid additional charges.

3. Compost Colorado will collect the customer’s compost bucket on the last route day following the cancellation.

4. Customers opting to retain their buckets will incur a $10 bucket retention fee.

 

Updated January 2024.