By Alex Greenbaum, Senior Associate, Think Zero LLC
Sustainability and Waste Reduction is so important to deal with the current climate crisis we are currently faced with. One of the best ways to help combat climate change is to ensure you are working with diverse teams that include people from different backgrounds and different views on sustainability and waste reduction. To start off the new year, Think Zero LLC would like to highlight diversity in waste as well as some of the companies who are doing amazing work in this area.
About The Team: Maranda Miller, a Kentucky native, resides in the Bronx, NY with her two children (ages 12 and 17). Maranda loves being outdoors, doing yoga and works in higher education specializing in academic support and STEM education. The family started their zero waste and plastic-free journey in December 2018 to ensure that Mother Earth is around for them and future generations.
About The Company: The goal is for EcoBronx to be an eco-space for all Bronx residents to increase their knowledge of and access to sustainable and refillable products. The retail aspect of the space will focus on retailing sustainable/refillable/package-free products and food items from predominantly local makers to reduce carbon emissions. The educational aspect will include workshops such as making your own cleanser, why the need to reduce plastic usage, and basic mending sessions. It is intended to be a social enterprise business dedicating a specific percentage of the business profits back into local community initiatives focused on sustainability projects and providing services to assist in the community's reduction of items going to landfills. Keeping with the give-back mindset, customers will be able to perform pay-it-forward actions so that everyone is able to make sustainable lifestyle choices. Currently Exo Bronx is set up as a mobile sustainable living + refill shop that can be found in different locations around the Bronx. Check their Instagram page @Ecobronxllc for updates and more information
About The Team: Victor was BK ROT’s first biker beginning in 2013. Hailing from Mexico, he learned his composting, farming and carpentry skills at Bushwick Campus Farm while in high school. He is a skilled carpenter (he makes BK Rot’s compost sifters and other as-needed farm and compost equipment) and is interested in ecological conservation and animal care as a long-term career path. Victor has trained with the US Composting Council. At BK ROT, Victor manages the site and equipment, leads daily compost operations, and trains new workers.
About The Company: BK ROT is New York City's first community-supported, bike-powered, fossil fuel free food waste hauling and composting service. BK Rot is staffed by young people of color who haul residential and commercial organic waste and transform it into high quality compost. These operations provide accessible jobs and sustained professional development for emerging environmental leaders.
About The Team: Domingo Morales is the founder of Compost Power, GCF Alumnus, and our Compost Consultant. Domingo discovered his passion for farming and composting as a member of Cohort 10 in 2015. While serving with GCF, Domingo secured a job at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden working at the very compost site where he was receiving his training. Several years later he was managing the largest human powered compost site in the country. Domingo’s vision is to build sustainable compost sites throughout NYC, with an emphasis on underserved communities and NYCHA. He is the inaugural winner of the David Prize and is developing an educational video series focused on urban composting through Compost Power.
About The Company: We are working toward a “green city” rooted in social, economic, and environmental justice. We view young adults from frontline communities as the essential force for driving the emergence of sustainable and resilient cities—by transforming their own lives, leading community transition, and promoting the values of a new regenerative and inclusive economy.
We envision young people building the green cities we want to see through engagement in service years that also lead them on a path to satisfying and rewarding careers. We view service, purposefully designed, as a systemic solution to create a just, collaborative and connected society. Our ambition: that service to help build green and equitable cities becomes an avenue to opportunity for a generation of young residents of public and low-income housing.
