OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Habitat ReStore celebrates 25 years of diverting 300,000 items annually from Omaha landfills. City of Omaha and MCL Construction share their sustainability efforts.
- While not all items can be salvaged, the City of Omaha says the program makes a big difference, especially with bigger, bulkier items like furniture.
- MCL Construction has diverted over 36 million pounds of waste out of the landfill.
- The Habitat ReStore will celebrate its anniversary of helping the community at both store locations this Saturday.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Keeping gently used furniture out of the landfill isn't just environmentally friendly, it's also cost-friendly. Celebrating 25 years, the Habitat ReStore is one example of the community working to combat waste in Omaha.
For a quarter of a century, Habitat for Humanity has kept about 300,000 items a year out of the landfill through its ReStore program. From donations to deconstructed home goods, the organization helps divert materials that would otherwise end up in waste facilities.
"If people are looking to remodel their kitchens, usually they'll just demo it," said Matthew Gulick, Habitat ReStore West assistant manager.
"Rather, what we do here with our deconstruction program, we go in with contractors, we remove these kitchen cabinets so in that way people are able to reuse them."
While not all items can be salvaged, the City of Omaha says the program makes a big difference, especially with bigger, bulkier items like furniture.
"The city's recycling program can't accept materials like that, and those materials getting into your curbside carts or recycling drop-offs like this can actually cause problems in the recycling center," said Madeline Ferber, City of Omaha recycling coordinator.
When large items like couches are left at recycling locations, the city contractor will clean them up, but that comes with a cost that can be felt across multiple sectors, including the construction industry.
"For every haul, I have a certain dollar amount I have to pay to get that dumpster to be hauled to the landfill and then give us an empty dumpster. I'm also, every time we have a haul, you know, you have a truck that's emitting carbon into the atmosphere," said Rich Woodson, MCL manager of engineering integration and sustainability.
Woodson shares that the construction industry is one of the largest contributors to solid waste in the world. His company has diverted over 36 million pounds of waste out of the landfill.
While construction sites deal with waste by the ton, Habitat ReStore tackles the same problem one item at a time.
"Some of the nicer furniture that we get here is really heavy just because it's solid and it's quality material. If you're trying to throw that away, you're gonna have to pay an arm and a leg to throw out something that's really quality that someone else could probably use," Gulick said.
The Habitat ReStore will celebrate its anniversary of helping the community at both store locations this Saturday.
