Waste Trac Education Team

Black Hawk County Landfill will close tomorrow, October 29th, at noon due to anticipated high winds. The Landfill will resume normal hours on Wednesday. If disposal is needed go to the Cedar Falls Transfer Station.

Join our Waste Trac team at the Cedar Falls Library next Wednesday at 3pm to help us upcycle milk jugs into Halloween lanterns! 👻

Here are the results from our 9/11 Day of Service Clean Up! Thank you to everyone who contributed their time!

Registration is filled for the September 7th HHW and Electronic Collection Event.
If you have electronic items for recycling, these care accepted year around at the Cedar Falls Transfer Station.
For HHW, the next collection event will be in May 2025.

If you have not heard, the Black Hawk County Landfill is now utilizing its gas as a vehicle fuel and reducing its environmental impacts

New system up and running at the Black Hawk County Landfill A number of new wells are now collecting the landfill gas, turning it into renewable natural gas.

The Black Hawk County Household Hazardous Waste and Electric Recycling event is less than a week away. We still need 15 volunteers to assist with this event. Please consider volunteering from 8:00 - 1:00.

Sign up at:

m.signupgenius.com

Green Iowa Americorps and the City of Waterloo are hosting a litter clean-up for our 9/11 Day of Service! 🇺🇸

Join us by signing up below!

https://forms.gle/QTHTFj3SYhX3WnG47

We are having another litter clean-up!

This time we're tackling Hess Road in Waterloo! This is the road that leads up to Lost Island Waterpark.

We will be meeting at the Lost Island KOA at 9 am on August 10th. Bags/grabbers/vests/gloves will be provided! All you need to bring is yourself.
If you have interest in environmentalism and helping your community please come help us! The more the merrier!

Here is the link to the sign up sheet, let us know if you have any questions!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdt2-q5UWwuRYdJ17iDAHnu0cZ45LhN8Dvkn1K-0201daGduw/viewform?usp=sf_link

Thanks to the Dunkerton Library for having us.

Here is the haul from our July litter clean-up at Harold Getty Lake! Thank you to all who attended!

Interested in bettering your community? Here's a sign up link to our litter clean-up happening July 13th! See you there!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13EH9BMnMFE8Kq2wv0pE8SCYZ7oWgl5AZPBFHh0yCClA/edit?usp=sharing

Did you know microplastics have been found in our waterways? This can be damaging to local ecosystems 🐟🐟

Help save our local wildlife by joining in a community litter clean-up to keep plastic out of our lakes and rivers!

Compost feeds the soil and slowly releases nutrients over time. Compost improves soil water holding capacity, decreases the need for synthetic fertilizers by slowly releasing nutrients over time, and enhances healthy soil conditions to increase yields and regenerate soil biology to grow more nutrient-dense crops.

Compost can help turn nutrient-starved dirt into rich, healthy soil where our fruits and vegetables can grow and thrive. How does compost help? By recycling organic material into compost we create healthy soils that produce healthier food and in many cases higher yields. It also reduces the need for fertilizer and pesticides, improves water quality and conserves water, as well as stores carbon in soil - helping to reduce climate change.

Climate champions bring communities together for a common cause. Composting is nature’s climate champion and builds community resiliency by creating local jobs, providing environmental education and building local healthy soils to support resilient ecosystems and productive food gardens.

Carbon sequestration is the capture, removal and storage of carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere. When compost is applied to our soils, it enhances soil health and creates an abundant community of microbes and healthy plants that sequester carbon in the soil.

When food scraps, yard waste and other organic materials go to a landfill, their decomposition produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The production of methane is due to anaerobic decomposition, the absence of oxygen. A compost pile on the other hand decomposes aerobically, with oxygen, and primarily produces carbon dioxide. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions can help reduce impacts from climate change.

Composting is a tool in addressing climate change. Compost reduces greenhouse gas emissions at landfills, promotes healthy plant growth and increases resilience to the effects of climate change such as drought, flooding and other extreme weather events.

Join us in celebrating International Compost Awareness Week today through May 11th! This year's theme is “COMPOST…Nature’s Climate Champion”. Let’s all work together to share the message about the many benefits of composting our food scraps and yard waste and then using the compost we create on our gardens and farms. Together we can all do our part to be a climate champion!

Want to spend some quality time with your friends and protect the environment? Consider volunteering for the Spring Household Hazardous Waste and Electronic Recycling Collection Event on May 11th from 8:00 am - 12:30 pm. By the way, Icon Donuts, fruits, and Fat Cop coffee will be available. For more information or to register at: wastetrac.org/volunteer

International Compost Awareness Week starts in just a little over a week! Check out the ICAW events page to find an event in your area or to get ideas of what you can do in your community. When you have your plans, take a minute and share them on the page so people can know what is happening near you and around the country.
https://compostfoundation.org/icaw-get-involved-events

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Have you registered for the Spring Household Hazardous Waste and Electronic Recycling Event?

Congratulations Dennis.

City sanitation worker wins award WATERLOO — Dennis Moore, a solid waste technician with the city of Waterloo's sanitation department, earned an award for his driving skills.

What does this year’s International Compost Awareness Week theme mean – COMPOST…Nature’s Climate Champion? The theme highlights the role compost plays with reducing the impact of climate change by:

Decreasing methane: A greenhouse gas more than twenty-five times as impactful as carbon dioxide, methane can be significantly reduced through recycling organics.
Climate change mitigation: Compost’s return to the soil serves as a “carbon bank,” helping to store carbon and offering an answer to climate change mitigation.
Reducing fertilizer needs: Compost improves soil water holding capacity, decreasing the need for synthetic fertilizers by slowly releasing nutrients over time, and enhancing healthy soil conditions Increasing resilience: Compost helps to increase resilience to the effects of climate change such as drought and extreme weather.
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Just 2 weeks away from the 2023 Fall Household Hazardous and Electronic Waste Collection Event in Cedar Falls and we are still in need of volunteers, please consider this opportunity.

September 16, 2023 HHW Collection Event Volunteers Many hands (and strong muscles!) are needed to pull off this large community household hazardous and electronic collection event work. Volunteers (ages 16+) can help out for the entire length of the event 7:45AM- 1:00PM, or for a morning shift (7:45AM- 12:15PM) on September 16, 2023. Both light duty...