While some people associate sustainability with recycling paper, plastic and glass, initiatives from the New Albany Community Foundation and the City of New Albany offer community members unique opportunities to help the environment.
Reduce. Reuse. Refashion.
Sarah Kate HIll
Last fall, The New Albany Community Foundation (NACF) kicked off its denim recycling initiative, Jeans for Green New Albany.
Inspired by retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, which participate in denim recycling, NACF wanted to bring it to the community level.
The first collection, which ran from Sept. 22 through Oct. 10, allowed community members to drop off denim of any size, color or condition at a handful of locations.
Nanette Nardi Triplett, a board member who chairs the Foundation’s sustainability committee, leads the initiative and says the community dropped off more than 1,000 items this past fall. During the spring drive, from April 8-22, 791 items were collected.
“I was just amazed by how much we gathered, and we had people donating jeans with tags still on them, never been worn, which was amazing to me,” Nardi Triplett says. “The generosity of the community is probably the most amazing thing.”
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Giving denim a do-over
Nardi Triplette
Working with a handful of community volunteers, Nardi Triplett sorted through the donations, cleaned them and determined whether they were in good condition.
She says about 75 percent of the items from both drives were in good condition and able to be donated to families in need at the New Albany Food Pantry, while the remaining unwearable denim was reclaimed primarily for home insulation.
NACF President Craig Mohre says he was excited to see the community’s response to the initiative. With one of the Foundation’s goals being sustainability, he’s looking forward to the program’s future.
“I think it’s a win all the way around, right? (The denim) doesn’t go into the landfill, families that need help get clothing, or we reuse it and repurpose it,” Mohre says.
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Community connections
Gina Stelluti
To arrange the collection, the NACF coordinated with partners across the community, with drop-off locations including Village Hall, the Plain Township Fire Station and the five New Albany-Plain Local School District buildings.
By partnering with the City and the Township, the Foundation was able to spread the word about the initiative with newsletters and social media. Nardi Triplett says the students held school-wide competitions to encourage participation.
She also notes that businesses such as Bechtel and Bob Evans had their own internal competitions, providing collective donations for the initiative.
In addition to denim recycling, she says the Foundation is looking forward to other potential initiatives, such as tree planting.
“I think there is room for more community involvement, and I’m hopeful that (Jeans for Green New Albany) is the beginning of many different sustainability efforts that we have for the Foundation,” Nardi Triplett says. “I think the response from the community is there, and so (I’m) hopeful that, whatever we include in the next sustainability initiative will also be well received by the community.”
Fighting Food Waste
Franklin County sends roughly one million pounds of food waste to the landfill every day. Food waste in landfills creates methane, which is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Since April 2022, the City of New Albany has provided public food waste drop-off locations, but thanks to the success of a pilot program for curbside food waste collection, the City is now looking to expand food waste collection city-wide.
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Curbside compost
City of New Albany
As of September 2025, households in the Windsor neighborhood are eligible to participate in the City’s Pilot Curbside Food Waste Pick-Up Program.
The program is offered through the City’s partnership with the Compost Exchange, a Columbus-based company providing weekly food scrap collection.
Registered households receive a five-gallon bucket and compostable liners from the company. On the same day as trash and recycling collection, the bucket is placed at the curb and collected by the Compost Exchange. The registered households can also request up to two free two-gallon compost portions a year.
City of New Albany
David Celebrezze, the City’s sustainability program coordinator, says 48 of the 275 Windsor households have registered for the program, with 66 percent participating, which he says is fairly high for industry standards.
“I think most people want to do the right thing, but you need to make it easy for them,” Celebrezze says. “I think what this has shown is that if you make it easy, people will do it because they want to do it.”
Between September and May, Celebrezze says the program has collected 7,672 pounds of food waste and avoided 14,125 pounds of carbon dioxide.
“The program has been great for raising awareness. It’s been great (for) educating people about compost,” Celebrezze says. “I would say it’s been a success.”
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City-wide sustainability
The pilot program is slated to run at least through September 2026, and thanks its success, the City is now considering a city-wide curbside food waste collection in partnership with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio.
Celebrezze says that with city-wide collection, the City likely would still maintain its food waste drop-off locations, especially for community members living in apartments, who don’t receive curbside collection.
Presently in Franklin County, municipal curbside food waste programs are offered in Upper Arlington and Bexley, with each community following a different model. Celebrezze says the City is still considering its options.
“We’re excited about it and the fact that there’s only two other communities in Franklin County that are doing it, it’s pretty cool that we might be the third,” he says.
Amanda Stevens is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at astevens@cityscenemediagroup.com.
