Allie Omens

Allie Omens

Zero Waste Program Coordinator, Metro Nashville Waste Services

Allie Omens always has been interested in waste. She says her earliest memory of her obsession with waste was having a compost container outside her freshman dorm room at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).

“I think it was something about needing to bring my California culture to the new environment I was in North Carolina,” she says. “Ever since then, I’ve bounced between different interests in waste. So, food waste has always been close to my heart; I find it very interesting and very important.”

Omens graduated from UNC in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and environmental studies. As she ventured into the solid waste industry, Omens says she hoped to chart her own path within the space, paying particular heed to the academic component of waste management.

“Waste is so tangible, and I think that’s why I like it so much. It feels very personal; we all engage with it every day, whether we know it or not,” she says.

After college, she started working in local government, eventually landing at Metro Nashville Waste Services in Tennessee as a materials marketplace project lead. Today, she serves as the agency’s zero waste program coordinator, overseeing education and organizing pilot programs for zero waste initiatives.

In the following interview with Waste Today, she shares some of the projects she’s been involved with Metro Nashville.

Waste Today (WT): How has your work changed since transitioning from a construction and demolition role to a zero waste role at Metro Waste?

Allie Omens (AO): I’ve been very glad and excited to have transitioned to [a] zero waste program coordinator role with Metro Nashville Waste Services. … Now, my role has broadened into managing our education and outreach strategies at a higher level for all of those waste streams that are a priority to Nashville. That still does include construction and demolition (C&D) waste, but food waste has become a major part of my day-to-day, which is a welcome addition because it feels like it’s the foundation of my waste experience in a lot of ways.

I also lead my amazing team of zero waste specialists. We lead presentations out in the community to teach [recycling] practices and give people the dirt on composting, as we call it, and help empower residents to make better decisions at the curb.

WT: Can you tell me about Nashville’s food scraps pickup pilot that you helped launch?

AO: Nashville’s food scraps pickup pilot is a year-long pilot program to collect food scraps and other compostable materials at the curb for 750 households. And these households represent a broad range of Nashvillians, of perspectives, of ages, races, languages spoken and a lot of factors that were really important to us, and [from us] considering how we effectively and equitably and efficiently select 750 households for this kind of service.

We are working with a fantastic contractor, Compost Nashville, to manage the collection side of the equation; they are providing these residents with a 4.8-gallon bucket. So, not a full-sized cart. But for the purpose of the pilot, a 4.8-gallon bucket [is] placed at the curb every week. And then we provided a countertop container for people to collect their material in.

We’ve only been doing the program for a few weeks now.