Office of Sustainability Receives Grant to Bring Hefty Recycling Back to Campus

The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s (UNO) Office of Sustainability will install orange-bag Hefty recycling bins in residence halls, Milo Bail Student Center (MBSC), and Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center (CEC). These bins will be strategically placed to provide students, faculty, and staff with easy access to the receptacles. The bins reintroduce campus users to the Hefty ReNew program, a plastics recovery initiative offering a sustainable way to dispose of hard-to-recycle plastics in Omaha, one of the only cities offering this important strategy to address plastic waste.

UNO participated in the Hefty ReNew program from early 2019 to late 2020. However, the program was paused due to the pandemic. Thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Hefty ReNew program, the UNO Office of Sustainability plans to revitalize it. “We plan to purchase and install Hefty recycling bins in all Dodge dining and residence hall locations and pay student peer educators in August and September to educate the appropriate constituents,” said A.T. Miller, UNO’s Chief Diversity Officer and Director of the UNO Office of Sustainability.

The Hefty ReNew program will serve as auxiliary support for existing recycling initiatives on campus. It provides users the opportunity to recycle hard-to-recycle plastics, such as candy wrappers, cereal box liners, chip bags, cookie/cracker box liners, foam egg cartons, and granola & energy bar wrappers. All Hefty bins will be labeled with the program's accepted items. Students, faculty, and staff should continue placing paper, cardboard, cartons, plastic bottles, tubs, cups, aluminum cans, and steel cans loose and unbagged in regular blue-bag recycling bins.

To recycle, users should fill orange Hefty bags with hard-to-recycle plastics, which are then sent along with all UNO recycling to First Star Recycling. At the recycling facility, operators will sort Hefty bags from general recycling materials. These plastics can then be converted into materials such as plastic lumber and decking. When this isn’t possible, the items are used to replace some of the coal in cement manufacturing kilns. According to the Hefty ReNew program website, “Our team has conducted research to ensure any alternative we use is better for the environment than simply landfilling.”

Hefty bins will be placed in the strategic buildings by September 6 and later this month in Dodge residence halls. For more information about the Hefty ReNew program, visit the Hefty ReNew Program website or contact the UNO Office of Sustainability at sustainability@unomaha.edu.