Hillside Solutions

Got a recycling doubter in your life? (Everyone does.) The one who insists it all just ends up in the landfill anyway? Take them on a tour of First Star Recycling. Free all month. They'll see the trucks unload and watch people sort it into bales for processing. We've been many times and nobody walks out a doubter. Link in the comments to book.

Omaha's residential recycling program hit a wall. Check out this Flatwater Free Press chart — we're stalled above 20,000 tons annually. We got some thoughts (and a positive step you can take today) on how to get around this. The U.S. recycling rate has been stuck around 32-35% for over a decade. Plateauing is normal. Yes, Omaha's residential recycling diversion rate is lower than the national average (16% 🫣 ). But the article shares how other cities get around that. And it's not "recycle harder." It's ... — Require multi-family housing and businesses to recycle (aka pass a law) — Ban things from the landfill, like cardboard (Lincoln did it, but also that's another law) — Provide municipal composting (aka raise taxes AND pass a law) Laws are hard to pass. Taxes even harder. So we got something easier that you can take action on today. We're piloting year-round curbside composting, right now, in Midtown neighborhoods. About 75 households so far. Yard waste, food waste, and even dairy and meat. And all that diversion data will be shared with the City of Omaha so future charts look a lot better. Someone needed to do something. We just did it. And now you can, too. Sign up or join the waitlist. Ask and we'll share the link.

Yesterday, we picked up our first curbside compost cart in Omaha. It took 8 years to get here. We started Hillside Solutions as a hauling company. Trash and recycling. Along the way we built a composting facility, launched a drop-off compost program that grew to 1,800+ members, and kept hearing the same thing from people: "I'd compost if I didn't have to drive it somewhere." So we built the thing that didn't exist. Curbside Compost Club is now live — the first residential curbside composting pickup service in Omaha. Council members Pete Festersen and Danny Begley came out for the ribbon cutting, and then our trucks rolled into Midtown, Dundee, Aksarben Village, and Central Omaha to service the first homes. Here's what we've learned building this: the demand for composting isn't the problem. People want to do it. The barrier was convenience. Remove the friction and action follows. If you're in the waste industry, municipal government, or you've been trying to get something like this going in your city — happy to talk about what we learned. Took some wrong turns to get here. But today, we're celebrating.

A fully circular food system is running inside an Omaha elementary school right now. At Montessori Children's Room, lunch scraps are collected and sent to a composting facility. The finished compost comes back, goes into the school garden, grows vegetables, and those vegetables end up back on the kids' plates. Then the cycle restarts. The compost feeding their garden was donated in part by 1,800 households across the Omaha metro through our Compost Club Gives program — where members vote each year to send their earned soil credits to nonprofit food gardens instead of keeping them. Hillside Solutions gave Montessori our 2025 Compost Club Gives award for closing this loop. But the real story is simpler than any award: these kids don't think any of this is special. To them, it's just how things work. That's the goal. Not to make composting feel like a cause — but to make it feel normal. We're currently composting with 20+ schools in the Greater Omaha area. If your school, district, or organization wants to explore what this looks like, we're revamping the program and launching new schools this fall.

Nebraska's groundwater has a nitrate (poison) problem. To help fix that, a report was just released that made composting a state priority. Here's the breakdown: The Governor's Water Quality and Quantity Task Force released a big document. Fourteen goals addressing nitrate contamination, water measurement, soil health, drinking water infrastructure, and funding mechanisms statewide. Here’s why we’re excited: Compost made it into the framework. Under Goal 7, the Task Force established "increase in acres with sampled manure or compost applied" as a measurable success metric. Compost application is woven across soil health BMPs, nitrogen management BMPs, and water quality BMPs, making it eligible under multiple funding streams including the Nitrogen Reduction Incentive Act, ONE RED, and the Water Resources Cash Fund. Hillside Fund was part of this process. In November, our founder Andy Harpenau presented to the Methods and Resources subcommittee on on-farm organics management in Nebraska, sharing data from Soil Dynamics' existing work distributing processed organic material to farms in the Omaha region. Seeing the final report align with the work we've been doing in composting education, farmer outreach, and synthetic fertilizer reduction is encouraging. The policy architecture is taking shape, and compost has a place inside it that goes beyond a single line item. We've published a full analysis of how compost fits into the Task Force's recommendations on our blog, linked below.

Omaha's busiest conference center and arena — CHI Health Center Omaha — composted 93 tons of food waste in a single year. That didn't happen by accident. Levy Restaurants, the venue's food and beverage partner, uses a waste-tracking system called Waste Not 2.0 that has changed how their entire operation handles food. What started in the main kitchen expanded to coffee prep, then to concessions at Creighton basketball games. They even donate usable food to Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue. This is what it looks like when a major venue decides to go all-in. So Levy our Biggest Impact award at this year's Awards Gala. You can do the same — here's how: — Set up a scale in the kitchen and weigh every piece of food that doesn’t get served. Use Waste Not 2.0 or set up your own tracking system using our DIY template (comment and we'll share it below). — Partner with a food rescue organization like Saving Grace to divert usable food before it hits the compost bin. — Start with your highest-volume waste stream (usually food prep) and expand from there. This is the easiest stuff to compost since it’s in a “controlled environment.” If you decide to go front-of-house, give us a call, as it’s tricky. Need some help getting started? We're here to help.

Celebrate Global Recycling Day with us at the Forest! We’re proud to support a cleaner, healthier environment by offering waste management stations throughout the Nature Center to make recycling easy for all visitors. Even better, organic waste doesn’t go to waste here. By working with Hillside Solutions , the Forest now offers composting, which return nutrients back to the earth and reduces landfill impact. 🌱 Recycling tip for home: Keep it simple, set up clearly labeled bins for recycling, trash, and compost. Rinse out containers before recycling to avoid contamination (this is one of the biggest reasons items don’t get properly recycled!).

We’ve got a truckload of bananas coming in, and we need your help! . Join us on Tuesday, March 31st at 9:00 AM at Soil Dynamics Downtown (1725 Ave G, Omaha, NE 68110, Suite B1725) to help Whispering Roots unload and toss the bananas into our compost pile. . These bananas will go from yellow to mellow as they turn into nutrient-rich soil that will help grow healthy food this summer 🌱. . Comment below if you can lend a hand! Bring gloves and clothes you don’t mind getting a little dirty. We appreciate the community support. 💚

The 2025 Hillside Solutions Awards Gala is in the books + here's what comes next (you're gonna wanna know!). 🌿 On Friday we gathered some of the most forward-thinking organizations in Omaha to celebrate what's possible when people actually commit to doing things differently. These aren't companies and schools chasing a trend. They're building systems, changing habits, and proving that sustainability works — right here in our city. Congrats to our 2025 award winners: 🏆 Biggest Impact Award — Levi Restaurant at Chi Health Center 🏆 Zero Waste Event Award — HDR 🏆 Resilience Award — National Indemnity Company 🏆 Innovation Award — Omani Carson 🏆 Multi-Family Award — Elmwood Tower 🏆 Eco-Friendly School Award — Castelar Elementary 🏆 Compost Club Gives Award — Montessori Childrens Room 🏆 Reuse Award — Saving Grace Food Rescue 🏆 Implementation Award — St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church  🏆 Producer Responsibility Award — Kent Holm Each one of these stories deserves its own spotlight — and they'll be getting one. Videos coming soon. 🎬 Huge thank you to our sponsors who made this night possible: SecretPenguin · Bin Bath · Omaha Community Foundation · Clothes Mentors · FNBO · Justin Larsen Insurance · Sanitation Products · Kaleb Duncan Photography 📸 Thank you to Meal Box Omaha for the incredible food, Nancy Williams of Block 27 Consulting for the keynote, and to everyone who bought a ticket and showed up. This event exists because of you. Now — we get to work. In April, we're launching our Curbside Compost Club program. If you've been waiting for curbside composting in Omaha, the wait is almost over. Be among the first to sign up. 🔗 Link in bio.

Here's what a proper office recycling program looks like in Omaha: ♻️ A bin for composting food waste and paper towels ♻️ A bin for recycling soft plastics (Hefty Renew) ♻️ A bin for containers — bottles, cans, cardboard ♻️ Reusable mugs, plates, and utensils ♻️ Refill coffee and water stations ♻️ Custom training video for every employee ♻️ Bilingual sorting guides for custodial staff 🗑️ Landfill? Last resort. That's Alvine's HQ in downtown Omaha. Last year, they won our Implementation Award for building this from scratch using our 12-step guide. This Friday, we celebrate the next class of Omaha organizations doing the work. We'd love for you to be in the room. We'll have a locally-sourced dinner, 10 award categories, a paddle raise for school composting, and a dance floor. Dinner tickets now sold-out. $50/ticket general entry. Available at hillsidefund.org