"It works like this: People in the Omaha area buy orange Hefty-brand bags from local Hy-Vee stores or from online vendors. They then fill the bags with stuff that’s not otherwise recyclable, like foam cups, chip bags and plastic utensils. The bags go into recycling bins, and once they arrive at the City of Omaha’s contracted recycling sorting facility, they’re picked off a conveyor belt and stockpiled for alternative uses. One such use is a fuel source at a Kansas City-area cement kiln."

"Dawaune Lamont Hayes, 23, of Omaha has spent the better part of this year stuffing the orange bags with such plastics. Hayes, who is communications director for a local art gallery, says he fills one up about every two months."

“I know that I have an option not to throw it into a landfill,” Hayes said.

"Sounds simple, right? But along the way, the program has also found vociferous criticism."

"On one side, program advocates say finding alternative uses for these materials is an improvement over sending them to rot in a landfill."

"On the other, local and national sustainability advocates have blasted the program. They say if we’re going to continue to use such materials as they’re currently made — think the multilayered potato chip bag — it’d be better to just let the stuff sit in a landfill. If that potato chip bag, for instance, is incinerated, as has been one use case with the program so far, it will emit carbon dioxide — exactly what environmentalists and many scientists say the Earth doesn’t need more of."