Wow! So many of you are new here. This is our occasional newsletter where we share localized tips and tricks on how you can recycle and compost more and better, and get closer to zero waste. It's been a while, so this one is ABSOLUTELY PACKED with goodies. We can't wait for you to enjoy the content. 🤩

This issue's rundown:

• 🔍 The big one: Nebraska hand-sorted its trash for the first time since 2009. The #1 item is food.

• 🚛 Compost Club by the numbers: 500+ homes, 92 tons, and two new neighborhoods just opened.

• 🟧 Orange bags are staying: Hefty’s leaving, but any brand of orange bag works, and First Star will sell them.

• 🎃 Pumpkin drop-off: Nov 1–15 at Dundee Bank. Your jack-o'-lantern gets a second life.

• 🤝 New partners: a Dundee backyard bar, Little Bohemia tamales, plus a long list of local businesses who picked a local hauler.

• 🌽 Cass County Fair: 4,800 pounds kept out of the landfill in four days.

Nebraska sorted its landfill trash by hand. You’re gonna wanna know what they found out about food waste.

For its first trash study since 2009, the state sent crews to eight Nebraska landfills and transfer stations to sort 606 samples of trash by hand, across all four seasons, into 65 categories. The results came out this summer. Here’s what it means for you.

Food is the #1 thing in your trash. Food is the single biggest item in Nebraska’s trash. The state estimates about 238,000 tons of food waste and food-soiled paper went to landfills in a single year. At Pheasant Point, the landfill near Bennington in the Omaha area, food and yard waste made up almost 30% of what got buried. In fall, food and yard waste climb to more than a third of Nebraska’s trash.

We’re all throwing away more. Each Nebraskan now throws away 7.5 pounds of trash a day (home and business trash combined), up from 6.3 in 2009. That’s an extra pound-plus per person, every single day. At Pheasant Point, it went from 6.4 to 7.3.

The good news: food is also the easiest fix. About 74% of Nebraskans already live somewhere food-scrap composting is available. If you live or work in Omaha, you’re one of them. Curbside Compost Club picks up your food scraps at home, and our commercial service does the same for your business. It all goes to Soil Dynamics to become compost instead of landfill gas.

Lincoln banned cardboard from its landfill. Should Omaha? Cardboard is still 5.3% of what Nebraska buries, even though it’s one of the easiest things to recycle. Right now, Nebraska doesn’t require businesses to recycle at all. The state’s report says Nebraska “may consider” banning cardboard from landfills. Lincoln already did that in 2018, and the amount of cardboard it buried dropped 76% in the first year. Today, Lincoln’s landfill takes in 4.0 pounds per person per day, the lowest in the study and down from 5.6. Omaha’s went up. The ban is likely part of the difference, and we think Omaha should seriously consider doing the same.

Where is all this trash coming from? Nobody knows for sure. Trash doesn’t always stay where it starts. Cass County has no landfill or transfer station of its own, so its trash gets trucked to another county. And no one is tracking where the trash in each landfill comes from. The state recommends that change. We’ve been looking into it, and we’ll have more for you soon.

Want the full breakdown and more graphics?
→ Read: Nebraska's #1 Trash Item Is Food

We did the math and had to sit down for a second

What you're about to see are real fact-checked numbers of the impact of Omaha's new residential composting program. You ready?

• Since the launch in April, our Compost Champions have rolled their carts out to the curb 5,342 times

• Each cart averages about 34.4 pounds

• Which means, 92 TONS of food scraps and yard waste have been kept out of Omaha's landfill

We now have 500+ households and we’re just getting started.

If you're one of them, YOU scraped the dinner plates, saved the coffee grounds and banana peels, raked the leaves in and remembered your pickup day (most weeks … we see you, and we thank you) 🫡

But there’s more good news:

• Check this short video of grain being harvested at a local farm that was fed by the compost you sent there and read more about where your material goes.

• One of our Clubbers filmed how she uses the service at home, and her neighbors join her at the curb as well. Watch the 60-second clip.

• New this month: Florence and new West Omaha neighborhoods are open. If you're in Florence in North Omaha or the newly added stretch of West Omaha, you can sign up now. Not sure if you're in? The address checker tells you on the spot, and if you're not in a zone yet, it puts you on the waitlist automatically.

• If you forget what your service day is, you can now check this handy map.

• Using curbside but want to compost compostable plates, cups and utensils? You can add in Drop-off Compost Club for just $3 a month and we’ll get you assigned to your local drop-off site. Just reply to get started.

• Want a tour of one of our compost sites? Audrey with Hillside Fund is hosting a tour October 22nd at 9:30 am. RSVP to audrey@hillsidefund.org.

• Already a member? Get a free month for every neighbor you bring. We just dished out free months to people who have been named as a referral. Got a neighbor who keeps saying they'll start composting "one of these days." Have them list your name on the sign-up form, and you get a free month of service. How referral rewards work.

The more carts on the curb, the bigger this number gets.

→ Check your address here

Your orange bags are staying, and now we know how

We broke the news first that Hefty ReNew is going away nationwide but a version is staying in Omaha. Then the TV stations ran their own stories, and First Star shared new details.

The big question was how you’d keep getting orange bags. First Star Recycling has since filled in the answer:

• Any brand of orange bag works. First Star says it accepts “the materials in any brand of orange bag.” When the Hefty bags leave the shelves, other orange bags do the same job. About half the bags they sort already aren’t Hefty.

• You can buy bags straight from First Star. That goes for homes and businesses, or you can grab orange bags from other stores.

• It’s bigger than Omaha. The program continues across First Star’s service area, which covers Omaha, Lincoln, and southeast Nebraska, including drop-off sites in Omaha and Lincoln.

Here’s the background. Reynolds, the company behind Hefty, is winding down the national ReNew program. Hefty bags come off store shelves by the end of this year, and the national program ends June 30, 2027. If you’ve used our orange bag guide, you know those bags are where a lot of your hard-to-recycle plastics go: candy wrappers, cereal box liners, bubble wrap, foam cups, plastic utensils.

Omaha can keep going because First Star, which has sorted our orange bags since 2016, turns that plastic into lumber at its own facility. “Omaha is unique,” CEO Patrick Leahy told WOWT. And they’re keeping the color orange because it “pops” on the sort line.

Still to come: what the bags will cost from First Star and which stores will carry other brands. We’ll share it as soon as they do.

Want our guide on how to participate? Here are our tips for businesses and homes.

In the meantime, nothing changes. Keep using the orange bags you’ve got. And a fellow Clubber started a petition to Hefty to keep the program, if you’d like to sign it.

🎃 Free pumpkin drop-off at Dundee Bank: Nov 1–15

Halloween's over, the candles are out, and your jack-o'-lantern is starting to slump on the porch. Don't toss it in the trash cart.

Where: Dundee Bank, 5015 Underwood Ave, Omaha (look for the big roll-off container in the parking lot)

When: Sunday, November 1 through Sunday, November 15. Open 24/7.

Cost: Free. No sign-up, no membership.

Carved, whole, soft, gourds, decorative squash, all welcome. Pull out the candles, stickers and any plastic first, and dump the pumpkins out of the bag. Painted, glittered, or bleached pumpkins stay home (they aren't safe for the pigs).

Yep, pigs. Normally they go to a local pig farm. This year we’re looking for a new one, so if you know a pig farmer near Omaha, let us know! Either way, nothing goes to the landfill. If we don’t find a farm, they get composted at Soil Dynamics.

Thanks to Dundee Bank for hosting again this year. Can't make it to Dundee? Our pumpkin guide has nine other things to do with yours.

NEW PARTNERS

If you wanna use your dollar or enthusiasm to support local organizations that have joined the recycling and composting movement, here's who we're celebrating this time around …

Plus: the local businesses that picked a local hauler

We know what we're known for. Recycling, composting, the orange bags, glass recycling. But every day our trucks also handle plain old trash pickup: dumpsters, carts, and roll-offs, run by a local crew you can call by name.

These businesses recently chose a local, family-owned company to haul their trash, and we're grateful to have them:

• H&H Group (all locations)

• Omaha Bagel Co.

• Platte Valley Watersports

• Titan Cabinets

• The Salvation Army Kroc Center

• MCL Construction

• Trinity Financial Group

• DDRS Express

Need trash pickup where you work? Landfill only is fine. If you ever want to add recycling or composting, you'll already have the crew that does it. Get a quote.