OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – A new era in garbage collection is starting across town today. You can no longer use your old trash cans and recycle bins, but that doesn’t mean you have to throw them away.
You’ve stored them for days, weeks, or even months, but today you have to use the new 96 gallon trash cans for your trash and recycling.
But before you dump your old bins on the curb, the nonprofit Keep Omaha Beautiful wants you to consider reusing them.
“When we think about where things are going and how we can keep things moving, conversion will always have the least impact on society and the least impact on the environment,” said Hanna Rennard-Ganley of Keep Omaha Beautiful.
Obviously, the plastic containers don’t degrade quickly. Hanna Rennard-Ganley says that in the long run it is not environmentally friendly or sustainable to have them piled in a landfill.
There are other options:
Although we no longer use them for trash or recycling, they are very reusable, ”said Hanna.
“I prepared everything for spring planting and soiled it.”
She turned one container into a vegetable planter and another into a kind of toy box.
“It’s accessible for the children to just throw things in,” said Hanna.
Other ideas could be turning your trash can into a rain barrel to lower your water bill, or using it as a composter or tool storage.
“There are a lot of really cool things to do and the sky is the limit,” said Hanna.
And you can always donate the bins that you no longer need. Organizations like City Sprouts want your old green bins to go to their urban farms.
Farm manager Aaron French says they need plastic bins to help pick vegetables and the old recycling bins go perfectly with that.
Whatever you choose, Keep Omaha Beautiful wants you to be aware of where your waste is going and always looking for ways to reuse it.
If you want to dispose of your old bins, you can throw them in the new trash and recycle the carts for pickup or drop them off at 5903 North 16th Street.
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