By: Crystal Kwaw, Reporter
OMAHA, Neb. – Reduce, reuse, and recycle is an alliteration many have heard, but landfill disposal continues to be the primary method of ridding ourselves of trash. Paul Dunn, Solid Waste Section Supervisor said that 17% of trash is salvaged from going to the landfill by recycling and composting.
“Putting stuff in the landfill is a dead-end,” Dunn said.
Pheasant Point Landfill, one of 23 permitted landfills in Nebraska, disposes on average 550 tons of Omaha’s residential trash every week, said Dunn. A ton looks like the size of a compact car, and each year 28,600 tons of Omaha’s residential trash is buried.
Dunn said it would take over 100 years for Pheasant Point to reach its full capacity, but other cities aren’t so lucky. According to Eyewitness News a 2017 local news article titled, “Who really takes the trash, where does it go,” New York exports their trash to neighboring states, a process that costs them hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
In the last 55 years, Douglas County has had three previous landfills: Hellinger Park, State Street, and RDF. According to a 2017 Nebraska Sierra Club study, the 152-acre Pheasant Point landfill opened in 2003.
“In 2015, it received 482,237 tons of solid waste for disposal 21% of all NE waste,” said the study.
According to the EPA, the national estimate of non-hazardous industrial waste produced is about 7.6 billion tons a year.
In Recover USA article called, “Industrial Waste Management: Waste Stream Statistics,” industrial waste is a 57-billion-dollar industry, and sometimes sold to nations like China.
“It’s great for American manufacturing, because it’s resources we could be using here,” said Danielle Easdale, sales and marketing director of First Star Fiber.
In addition, she said recycling is easy, better for the environment and promotes less mining for raw materials.
