When it comes to fighting climate change, one of the best approaches is to reduce our carbon footprint.
The Nature Conservancy reports that the average carbon footprint for someone in the U.S. is 16 tons. Globally that number is closer to four tons, and to fight the rise in global temperatures the average global carbon footprint per year should be under two tons by 2050.
Reducing carbon footprints involves taking some of the more obvious steps like reducing energy consumption and choosing eco-friendly modes of travel, as well as perhaps less obvious ones, like wasting less food.
That’s because once food hits the landfill, it doesn’t simply absorb into the soil and return to nature. Instead, it sits smothered under a mound of trash — sometimes for years or even decades. All the while, the food waste produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates global warming.
The documentary “Wasted! The Story of Food Waste” claims that a single head of lettuce can take a staggering 25 years to decompose.
Environmental organizations encourage people to purchase only what is needed, use what is purchased, and compost any leftovers rather than toss them out.
Composting is the natural process of breaking down organic material like food scraps, yard waste, coffee grounds, and eggshells.
Unlike in a landfill, collecting this material in an oxygen-rich environment — starting with a simple painter’s bucket underneath your sink — allows it to break down and transform a nutrient-rich compost that can then be repurposed to improve garden soil. It’s a win for your plants and a win for the environment.
While many people recycle, fewer tackle the next frontier of sustainability. Fortunately, that number is growing, including in Omaha.
Hillside Solutions is one local company that has its sights set on helping people and businesses in the area integrate composting into everyday life.
Business owners were trying to scale the waste management arm of their business — Gretna Sanitation — when they realized there was a gaping void in the industry they could help address: composting.
At the time, they were stacked against larger companies that owned the same landfills Gretna Sanitation was paying to use, and were contemplating whether they should open their own landfill. They ultimately decided to open the area’s only industrial composting facility instead — Soil Dynamics.
“That one decision fundamentally changed the whole trajectory of the company,” said Brent Crampton, director of partnerships with Hillside Solutions.
Their priority shifted from collecting materials that end up in a landfill to encouraging an eco-friendly alternative.
They helped kickstart the service by creating a compost club for anyone interested in getting started with composting. For a monthly subscription, members can collect compostable material at home and drop it off at more than 60 locations around the city, where Hillside Solutions will complete the process on your behalf. They accept items you can’t compost at home, including meat, dairy, bones, pet waste, bioplastics, and more. Once composted, members can choose if they want to get some compost returned for their own landscaping or donate their portion to a nonprofit garden.
Today, there are 1,800 household members of the Compost Club and counting. The goal is to introduce a new tier next year where people can opt in for curbside pickup.
Hillside Solutions officials said they started the composting efforts during a time when people were starting to care more about sustainability, and businesses were being more intentional about social responsibility.
Still, when it comes to recycling, perception can be a challenge. Crampton noted that headlines sometimes paint a bleak picture, leaving people to believe that a large percentage of what’s put in recycling bins end up in the landfill anyway. In reality, recycling remains an important system for capturing single-use materials.
Many businesses are composting, too. About 200 now compost with Hillside Solutions, including heavy hitters like Methodist Hospital, Creighton University, and HDR, eateries like Le Bouillon, Coneflower, and more than 20 schools.
When talking with companies, Crampton said that the conversation goes beyond the environmental benefits. It’s also about the reality that there will be an inevitable social shift towards composting — and acting now can have a positive impact on their bottom line.
“Regardless of how you look at it, this is inevitable,” he said. “The path we’re going down with composting and recycling, we’re going to get there one way or the other, where this is widely adopted and used.”
Crampton pointed to Europe’s growing successes with composting as a model of what’s possible when communities decide to treat waste as a resource rather than a burden. He noted that while the U.S. has historically had more room for landfills, expanding development is making that advantage less certain.
“A lot of what we’ve been doing in the past eight years is enabling the early adopters,” he said.
Crampton added that composting can be seamlessly integrated into waste management systems that are already in place.
“It’s not new trash, it’s the same trash you’re throwing away now, you’re just going to separate it into a different bin,” he said.
Compost isn’t just for backyard gardens, it’s an increasingly important tool in agriculture, too. It’s a nutrient-rich, natural fertilizer alternative that helps build healthier soil and reduces the need to spray crops with chemical fertilizers over time.
Across Nebraska, communities are paying more attention to what ends up in the ground — and in the water. Encouraging more sustainable practices, like composting, is one way farmers and communities can work together toward a healthier future for both people and the planet.
When it comes to composting, Crampton stressed it’s essentially nature’s version of recycling. Just as humans recycle human-made goods, it’s just as important to help nature remake nature-made things.
“When we bury things, it’s like a linear process,” he explained. “Linear processes are death. Modern society has given us a lot of linear processes, well now we’ve got to get back into circular processes. Indigenous folks knew and did, and so now we’re sort of like reintegrating modern lifestyle and technology with like Indigenous practices of circular lifestyles.”
Officials with Hillside Solutions believe the company is on the frontier of sustainability, and is zeroed in on continuing to help shift mindsets. They hold an awards ceremony annually to celebrate the eco efforts of local organizations.
To calculate your carbon footprint, visit The Nature Conservancy.