This year the Nebraska Recycling Council hosted the 2021 Compost Operations Training Course at the University of Nebraska East Campus. Waste to Energy Lincoln was lucky enough to be able to send one of our members to the training.
Why attend? Even though we currently are not compost operators we work hard to understand the needs of our partners who are. Our mission is not just to deliver organic waste for compost but to provide clean waste streams that allow for the best quality product. It is important to understand how food waste works from it's generation at the source through its decomposition in the compost pile. We wanted to understand how different types of compost are created and how to make an end product that serves the needs of our local community.
Who was there? People from all over the country and even a few from Mexico participated in the training hosted at UNL.
What did we do? The training was a mix of classroom learning, hearing from guest speakers, hands-on experiential learning, and trips to our local facilities. Through out the week we worked to build our own compost piles in small groups. We took daily measurements to apply our classroom learning to what was happening in our piles. Visits to local facilities allowed us to understand real life problems that arise and how different people have been able to mitigate them.
We are now better than ever equipped to provide the best most comprehensive food waste program in Lincoln, Nebraska (and maybe beyond).