What can artists gather from a landfill or the people who move waste? An exhibit in New York City collects the work of artists-in-residence from around the country who have drawn fresh meaning from discarded materials and their experiences working alongside waste haulers. The work, on display at the All Street Gallery through May 30, follows a path blazed by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a conceptual artist who created a residency program with the city’s Department of Sanitation in the 1970s. Ukeles' art pushed viewers to look at sanitation workers in a different light at a time when their work had been devalued by the city’s fiscal crisis. Gabriela D’Addario, curator of the show, studied under Robin Nagle, an author who has worked as a uniformed sanitation worker and served as DSNY’s "anthropologist-in-residence" since 2006. After taking Nagle’s course in discard studies at New York University, D'Addario began researching Ukeles' work.  She found that Ukeles had inspired similar programs throughout the country. Residencies have sprung up in several U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, the latter two run by private hauler Recology. D'Addario decided to bring together pieces from those programs as a means of exploring Ukeles’ artistic legacy.  "I found this one thing that has piqued my interest was actually a small part of a much larger story," D'Addario said. Today, she estimates more than 200 artists have come through the programs, creating pieces in a variety of mediums and disciplines. In the course of cataloging the work, she noticed some trends, like the prevalence of craftspeople working with materials such as wood and fiber on the West Coast and video work, including that of Ukeles, on the East Coast. A wooden sculpture made by Hilary Pfeifer with reclaimed wood and pencils. The piece was made through Recology Portland's GLEAN artist residency program. Courtesy of Eden Chinn/All Street Gallery   "There's all these interesting paradoxes, and I think that continues to be a driving question for me, is why are cities doing this? Why are they sponsoring this kind of thing?" D'Addario wondered. Through the variety of mediums used over the years, the work both documents the country's shifting relationship to waste and casts a fresh light on practices that often occur on the margins of organized society. D'Addario said she finds the work inherently optimistic, as artists reuse materials that are tossed aside and imagine new futures for them in the spirit of environmentalism. "We have these large systemic issues that we're facing and we haven't totally figured out how to fix them," D'Addario said. "Maybe this is a slightly different approach, this artist's toolbox and ways of thinking." Several artists attended the show's opening on May 4, including Jade Doskow, the photographer-in-residence for Freshkills Park in Staten Island, New York. Doskow began her work at the former landfill in 2021. She said she views the site as "a place of infinite possibility" for exploration, in part due to its size — the now-closed landfill is about 2,200 acres and was once the largest in the world. Two prints of photographer Jade Doskow's work at Freshkills Park hang at the All Street Gallery in New York. Between them are engineering images captured by DSNY and Bernstein Associates in 2021. Courtesy of Eden Chinn/All Street Gallery   Doskow's work provides sweeping views of the park that now sits on top of the closed landfill, as well as some of the man-made systems that maintain the waste underneath. She said she largely has free reign to document the site, save for restrictions around the West Mound, which holds debris from Ground Zero disposed there after the 9/11 attacks. By continuing to document the site, Doskow hopes to capture what she describes as "micro moments in the landscape cumulatively over time." "It's this perfect reflection of where humanity is right now in relation to nature, in relation to wilderness and the garbage we make," she said. The show is Doskow's first where her art has been featured alongside other sanitation artists-in-residence. She said she was excited by the variety on display, noting: "There’s so many directions that these very unusual partnerships can take." DSNY's artist-in-residence from 2021 to 2023, sTo Len, said he’s interested in bringing public attention to the agency's long history in the spirit of Ukeles. During his residency, the artist commandeered the agency's defunct screen-printing studio and established the "Office of In Visibility." In that space, Len used old screens to create new interpretive works with the signs and symbols used by DSNY to educate and inform residents for decades. A print by sTo Len hangs at the All Street Gallery in New York. The work remixes several motifs taken from DSNY’s dormant screen-printing studio.  Courtesy of Eden Chinn/All Street Gallery   Through his work, Len also met DSNY employees that held a variety of positions, including collection workers. He said connecting with them was the most important part of the residency. "It was a way of activating an archive and using an older medium in contemporary fashion," Len said. "They were able to see me play with the old imagery, give it new life." Since Ukeles' tenure, Len said the perception of sanitation workers in New York has improved. He also thinks residents today are more "ecologically aware of their own footprint." But he believes the work that sanitation workers do to keep the city clean and free of waste is still overlooked. "They still feel invisible. They still feel unrecognized," Len said. “I was inspired to create a work that gives them visibility and visibility that’s three-dimensional."

New York City environmental nonprofit GrowNYC is shutting down several community programs as emergency funding that's kept them afloat since December expires. Farmer's market food waste drop-offs, a school composting initiative and regular swap meets will be discontinued as part of the move. The programs have been on thin ice since November, when Mayor Eric Adams required all city agencies to reduce their costs in the face of a budget shortfall. The city’s Department of Sanitation zeroed out $3 million in funding for the city's Community Compost Program for fiscal year 2024 as part of those cuts, prompting several nonprofits that have long relied on the program to wind down their activities. GrowNYC was able to continue some of its programming thanks to emergency funding from outside donors, but that money is running out. The funding has supported 53 positions, according to previous statements from the GrowNYC Workers Collective. Courtney Scheffler, a compost driver for GrowNYC, said the nonprofit negotiated with the workers’ union to cut costs by shutting down some low-performing sites and consolidate pickup routes in recent months. Workers were initially hopeful that the emergency funding would support them through the end of New York City’s fiscal year in June. Instead, unionized workers operating the compost program will be laid off by May 20 and those working with schools and the swap meet program will wrap up their work by the end of June, GrowNYC announced on LinkedIn. “It's definitely such a disservice to the communities we serve,” Scheffler said. GrowNYC collected about 2.2 million pounds of food scraps in 2023 and has collected more than 24 million pounds since 2011, according to its 2023 impact report. Its website lists about 50 drop-off sites throughout the city and now features “Last Day Info” for each location. The Adams administration has made organics recycling a priority in its sanitation strategy, rolling out separate bins for organics to most residences in Brooklyn and Queens last year. That program is scheduled to expand to the remaining boroughs later this year. DSNY has also added a number of orange organics recycling drop-off bins on streets around the city.  But environmental activists have criticized the program, which sends most materials to be codigested at an anaerobic digestion facility in Brooklyn rather than composting facilities in and around the city. Scheffler said GrowNYC has routed more of its organic material to composting operations in Long Island rather than in the city, in part because of that strategy.  Members of the New York City Council have been vocal in their support for community composting, rallying in front of City Hall in December and vowing action through the budget process. Shan Abreu, chair of the council’s sanitation committee, called GrowNYC "a fixture of our city" in an emailed statement addressing the shutdown. "Our communities will feel this loss," he said. "These cuts not only hamstring New Yorkers that want to practice environmentally-conscious habits, they upend the lives and careers of GrowNYC workers who are building a cleaner, greener city for all of us."  The council member also vowed to continue pressing the Adams administration to reinstate funding for the program. Abreu said the council's budget negotiations team is making the community composting program a priority. He also noted his committee will hold a joint hearing with the council's finance committee in May "to press the issue once more." "Our communities and our council are resolute: this budget is not complete without full restorations to community composting," Abreu said. GrowNYC workers are still hopeful that the process will lead to a restoration in funding for their composting work, Scheffler said. She’s planning to continue working with the nonprofit’s Greenmarkets program for the time being while seeking outside work to replace the income she made from the composting program. The union will also continue to advocate for the remaining workers and the restoration of funding, Scheffler said. The workers’ union, organized through the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, also ensured laid-off employees will receive a severance package. They’re also negotiating to ensure GrowNYC calls back laid off workers first if the city restores funding for the Community Composting Program, though that procedure is less certain if the nonprofit decides to fund its programs through private donors instead, according to Scheffler. Residents will have to navigate a more fractured organics landscape in the meantime. Scheffler described meeting someone at GrowNYC’s Parkchester food scraps drop-off sites in The Bronx who was excited to find a place to bring their organics, but she had to warn them that the site would soon shut down. “We had to tell them this won’t be here much longer,” Scheffler said. “There will be people that will not be able to compost anymore because of the budget cuts.”

Dive Brief: Gov. Gavin Newsom last week appointed Zoe Heller, a longtime circular economy and zero waste specialist, as the new director of CalRecycle.  Pending state Senate confirmation, Heller will fill the role previously held by Rachel Machi Wagoner. Wagoner was appointed in December 2020 and left the position earlier this year. Wagoner has since started a legislative and regulatory consulting business, RMW Strategies. Heller is CalRecycle’s deputy director of the circular economy division. Industry groups say her industry knowledge and stakeholder engagement experience will help her oversee a department known for undertaking complex, multi-year projects. Dive Insight: Heller will step into a demanding role. CalRecycle is working to implement numerous high-profile policies: SB 1383, the state’s major organic waste diversion law; SB 343, a recyclability claims law; SB 54, the state’s EPR for packaging law; and multiple updates to the bottle bill, among other initiatives.  Optional Caption Retrieved from CalRecycle on May 08, 2024   “Coming from within CalRecycle, Zoe has the experience and knowledge of the complex issues of the many programs and responsibilities facing the director,” said Jeff Donlevy, general manager at Ming’s Recycling and a member of CalRecycle’s Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling, in an email. “Zoe is known and respected by the key stakeholders of the programs, especially [the] beverage container program.” Donlevy credited Heller’s work rolling out grant funding to bolster the state’s container deposit system infrastructure and operations.  Scott Smithline, who served as CalRecycle’s director from 2015 to 2019, also applauded Heller’s appointment. “There has never been more consequential work in front of CalRecycle. Zoe has the experience, skills and temperament to lead the [department] through it,” he said in a post on LinkedIn, in response to Californians Against Waste’s support for her appointment. Heller has been CalRecycle’s circular economy division director since 2023 but has served in several other roles there from 2017 to 2022. She has worked as deputy director of policy development and as deputy director of the Materials Management and Local Assistance division.  Heller worked at the EPA from 2006 to 2017, where she was a manager of the zero waste section, served as special assistant to regional administrator, and worked as an environmental protection specialist. Prior to that, she was a research and policy analyst at the Chicago nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology.  Rachel Oster, co-founder of the Recycle Right Coalition, said Heller was already known for her circular economy work under EPA, and has since become “ a respected policy voice” at CalRecycle while implementing aggressive policy mandates for source reduction, reuse and recycling. “Since these policies are now impacting almost every California resident and business, Zoe has built a strong connection and relationship with the variety of stakeholders at the table,” she said.  CalRecycle is formally known as the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. It manages permitting, compliance, recycling grant funding, market development, education and disaster debris management, among other tasks. Heller will oversee a staff of more than 1,000 people, which could expand further under the governor’s proposed FY25 budget. This story first appeared in the Waste Dive: Recycling newsletter. Sign up for the weekly emails here.

The public can now access an online library of environmental justice-related resources through the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Justice Clearinghouse unveiled last week. The purpose of the searchable library is to make it easier and more efficient for advocates and stakeholders to access resources that could propel their work, according to the agency. “Everyone interested in environmental justice will be able to find resources on one website,” Jalonne White-Newsome, federal chief environmental justice officer for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement.  The library includes over 200 resources such as available funding opportunities, screening and mapping tools, federal research and guides and information about organizations with specific subject-matter expertise. The National League of Cities’ sustainability director, Peyton Siler Jones, said in an email that the clearinghouse “offers a navigable set of useful resources that municipal leaders can use to inform their planning, policy, and funding to center environmental justice in their climate work.” Siler Jones said that the information in the database makes an “excellent start” at providing cities, towns and villages with the variety of resources they need for environmental justice work. The Biden administration says it has made environmental justice a central part of its agenda and is doling out billions of dollars for local projects. The clearinghouse, established through an executive order signed in April 2023, builds upon that work. “President Biden tasked the entire federal government with breaking down barriers to resources and information that help communities pursue environmental justice,” White-Newsome said. The resources currently in the online library are based on submissions from federal agencies, but the EPA hopes to add to the library on a rolling basis with suggestions submitted by the public. “It will only be made stronger with suggestions from the American people,” Theresa Segovia, principal deputy assistant director for the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, said in a statement. Submissions must be free, publicly available and link to a non-editable document like a PDF or website. “The opportunity to provide feedback here will allow the tool to evolve over time to address the needs of diverse stakeholders,” Siler Jones said.