Totally unique to our curbside customers — Our On-Farm Organics Management program takes your food scraps to Soil Dynamics in Ashland for initial processing. After removing any non-organic items, the material is ground up to speed up decomposition. This processed material is then transported to local participating farms, where it is used as organic fertilizer.

By doing this, farmers significantly reduce their reliance on synthetic fertilizers. This reduces the amount of nitrates that enter the soil and eventually the water system. This is a major win for Nebraska’s soil and water quality.

We do this in partnership with the Hillside Fund, and you can read about it here.

Any food or consumable liquid, including meat, dairy, bones, coffee grounds, and eggs. Yard waste, including leaves and branches smaller than half an inch.

Important: no compostable serveware or bioplastics are accepted. We do accept them in the Compost Club drop-off service. But since this material is going direct to local farms, we have more restrictions on the type of material that can go to these farms.

Download the quick reference guide, print it, and put it next to your container.

Here’s our full extended list of what is and isn’t accepted.

No more bag tags or waiting for certain times of the year. With our program, we’ll compost your yard waste year round and you can put as much of it as the curb as you’d like!

Here’s how it works:
— Any yard waste that can’t fit inside of your Hillside cart must be in brown yard waste bags, just the same as why City of Omaha requires. But you’ll no longer need to pay for bag tags.
— Keep at 40 pounds or less.
— If you have bulky yard waste items like tree limbs, we recommend dropping this off at our downtown Soil Dynamics facility. As a clubber, there’s no cost. Location details here: https://www.soil-dynamics.com/contact-and-locations#downtown-omaha-yard

If you’re familiar with our Drop-off Compost Club or our commercial service, you know that we historically have accepted plates, bowls, utensils, and other serveware that’s rated for compostability. The reason why we don’t accept this material with the residential curbside service is because the material won’t be fully processed to our usual industrial composting facility, Soil Dynamics..

Instead, we’ll be sending that to local farmers who will use it as organic fertilizer to lessen their use of chemical fertilizer. The stringent conditions needed to break down compostable serveware won’t be present, and the optics to local neighbors might not look good when they see items that could be perceived as “trash.”

We understand this may be an inconvenience, but the upside is that you’re participating in an innovative program that will help to clean up our local water system. To learn more about how conventional farming has increased Nebraska cancer rates, check out our Hillside Fund page here.

Keeping our compost stream clean is our biggest concern. Everything in your cart goes to local farms as organic fertilizer — plastics, glass, and regular trash ruin that process.

If our drivers spot contamination (plastic bags, styrofoam, glass, metal, etc.) in your cart, they'll skip it for that week. It's on you to pull the contamination out before next pickup. If contamination gets emptied into our truck before we catch it, a $25 contamination fee gets added to your next invoice. Repeated issues can lead to membership cancellation. When in doubt, check the sorting guide or leave it out.

There's also a 200-pound weight limit on carts. Our trucks can't safely empty anything heavier than that, and it's a safety issue for our drivers. If you've got a cart packed with wet yard waste, you might be closer to that limit than you think.

Disclaimer: Affiliate links are below.

You’ll need a container. You might want to use compostable bags. Here’s what we recommend ...

FREE CONTAINER OPTION: Use any old trash can or container already sitting around. Works fine in the cold months to store up to a week. Expect fruit flies in warm months unless you're emptying into something outside every 2-3 days.

FANCY CONTAINER OPTION: This stainless steel compost bin looks great and has a charcoal filter to deter fruit flies. The downside is that at 1.3 gallons, it won't hold much. But it’s a good companion when paired with …

RECOMMENDED CONTAINER OPTION: Get any 5-gallon bucket and lid like you see at Lowes or Mendards. We like this one since it’s green, food-grade, and BPA-free.

There's enough volume to suffice most families for up to a week, and the lid deters fruit flies.

BAGS OR NO BAGS: We don’t require you to use compostable bags. You can also use plastic bags at home. We just DO NOT want plastic bags to wind up in our drop-off containers.

But be warned, if you try to buy compostable bags online, you might get tricked into buying the wrong thing. There’s lots of confusing language. Only get bags that are BPI certified.

BAGS WE RECOMMEND: BioBag is our preferred brand. They break down really well. Check them out here.

Watch a video overview here.

Compost Credits: Upon subscribing and every calendar year after, you get 3-cubic feet of any soil blend, compost, or mulch. We call these “compost credits.” Please note this cubic feet, not yards :).

Plus you get 20% off any compost, soil, or mulch product we carry anytime of the year, as many times as you'd like.

Example: If you became a member in December, you can redeem product right away. Or if you wait until the spring, you'll actually get 12 cubic feet! Then your 6 cubic feet of product will refresh the next year.

Donate Your Compost Credits: Every spring, we offer you a chance to donate unclaimed credits to select food gardens via our Compost Club Gives campaign.

Where & when to pick it up: product available at our Soil Dynamics Yard near downtown Omaha. Check this link for hours & location.

To redeem compost credits or use discounts, check the Soil Dynamics Shop page for products, fill out the order form here, and mention you're a Curbside Compost Club member.

Yes! We pre-screen for contaminates before items are picked up and also on-site. When working with farmers, we verify that any chemicals they apply to crops are the type that safely break down in our composting process. And when we work with partners that give us a large amount of material, like fiber trays from Omaha Public Schools, we verify that those items are safely compostable. In the case of OPS, we received a signed letter from the manufacuturer going on record that no PFAS were used to make the trays.

Get Up to a Year of Free Curbside Composting.

Help us grow composting in our community and you could earn free Curbside Compost Club service for up to 12 months.

Complete any one of the actions below to qualify.

Spots are limited and available to both current and new customers on a first-come basis.

1) Help a Workplace Start Composting
Food waste happens everywhere — small offices, big companies, schools, you name it. If you help connect us with a workplace that wants to compost, that counts. Contact us here.

2) Connect a Restaurant, School, or Local Business
You know your town better than we do. If there’s a restaurant, school, or business you think should be composting, we’ll give you the tools and info to make the introduction. Just let us know who you reached out to so we can follow up. Contact us here.

3) Sign Up Your Neighbors
For every neighbor you refer, we’ll give you a free month of service! Just have them list your name in the referral section on the sign-up form.

Do More, Get More

Complete more than one action and unlock extra perks like:

• Finished compost delivered to you

• Compostable bags

• Hillside hats or shirts

Thanks for helping composting spread locally — it truly makes a real impact.

We’ve partnered with Bin Bath to bring a sparkling-clean, germ-free bin cleaning service right to your curb. And with code HILLSIDE15, you’ll get 15% off your first cleaning.

Here’s what you get:

• Grimy, gunky bins? Gone.

• 99.9% of germs and bacteria? History.

• Lingering odors? Replaced with a fresh, clean scent.

• Dirty water? Hauled away safely, not left in your driveway.

Book your first cleaning here and enjoy fresh, spotless bins.

Item desHave your cart at the curb by 5:00 AM on your pickup day. We'd recommend rolling it out the night before — one less thing to think about in the morning.

Leave at least two feet of space between your cart and anything nearby — mailboxes, trash cans, poles, your neighbor's cart. Make sure the lid is fully closed. If it's overflowing, that's what the extra bags are for come in.

These are the holidays that we don’t work on: Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, or the Fourth of July.

When a major holiday falls on a weekday, your pickup gets pushed back by one day for the rest of that week. So if your normal day is Monday and there's a Monday holiday, you'd get picked up Tuesday instead.

For weather, we make every effort to run routes rain or shine, but we won't put our team at risk on unsafe roads. If we need to cancel or delay, we'll post to our Facebook page and send an email. No billing adjustments are made for weather cancellations — they're rare, and we make up for it by being consistent the other 50 weeks a year.

Our best advice: when in doubt, leave your cart out.

Your bill is emailed in advance each month, and payment is due within 16 days of the invoice date. Check your spam folder — invoices come by email only. If you're having trouble with payment, just call us at 402-332-4710 ext 6 or email compostclub@hillside.solutions

Call us at 402-332-4710 at least 30 days before you want to cancel or move. We need to coordinate picking up the cart, so a quick call is the easiest way to handle it. You're responsible for monthly charges until we get that verbal notice.

For the cart, you've got two options: drop it off at our office (21824 Williams Cir, Gretna, NE 68028) for free, or we can come get it for an equipment retrieval fee of up to $25. Make sure the cart is empty and visible from the street — if we show up and can't find it or it's been refilled, there's a $30 return trip fee.

Refunds for prepaid services are issued within 60 days of cancellation, as long as the cart is returned in good condition.

Make sure we're in your neighborhood first by checking out the service map:

If so, here's how:

Step 1 — Cancel your drop-off subscription first (due to different billing system):

• Go to hillside.solutions → click "Sign In" or "My Account" (top right)

• Log in with your Hillside account password (not the map password)

• Click Subscriptions → Payment Method → Cancel

Step 2 — Sign up for curbside (or join the waitlist if you're not in our service area yet): hillside.solutions/compostclub/curbside

Step 3 — We'll be in touch with next steps!

Not sure if you want to switch?
Drop-off isn't going anywhere. If you like the flexibility, the price, or you compost a lot of bioplastics, it might still be the better fit for you.