Nebraska Recycling Council offers material management toolkit

The Nebraska Recycling Council (NRC), Lincoln, has released its “Community Materials Management Toolkit,” which compiles more than 390 resources covering 22 subject matter categories in solid waste, recycling and organics management. Located on the NRC website at https://nrcne.org/community-toolkit, it is designed for elected officials, municipal staff, industry, schools and community organizers looking for model ordinances, best practices, analysis tools and case studies that provide guidance on how to improve materials management practices.

Heather Creevan, executive director of the NRC, says the goal is to provide communities and organizations with resources they can actually use so that they don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”

She also says the toolkit should be of interest to communities and organizations outside of the state. “The information is applicable potentially to other areas outside of Nebraska.”

The toolkit is organized into categories:

• Analysis & Decision-Making Tools;
• Construction & Demolition;
• Commercial Recycling by Sector;
• Compost;
• Funding Mechanisms;
• Green Teams;
• Haulers & Collection;
• Hazardous Waste & Toxic Materials;
• Hub & Spoke;
• Landfills;
• Lexicon;
• Materials & Markets;
• Measurement;
• MRFs;
• Planning & Public Policy;
• Public Education;
• Reuse;
• Rural Recycling;
• Schools;
• Sustainability & Resilience; and
• Zero Waste.

Creevan says the NRC plans to update the resources available in the toolkit and add additional resources over time.

A $40,000 2019 Waste Reduction and Recycling Grant from the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy helped to fund the project.  

Nebraska Recycling Council is a statewide, member-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to maximize the economic and environmental benefits of resource recovery in Nebraska.