What's your trash story?  Can you recall a specific moment, experience, or person that sparked your love affair with trash? Can you share an early memory related to upcycling trash that left a lasting impression on you?

I guess you can say it all started when I was teaching at Pacoima Elementary School in the early 90’s.  I met Michael Klubock from the Malibu Foundation who did an assembly on the impact of trash on sea life in the LA area.  He talked about how kids could do a beach clean-up from their school - to keep the trash from getting to the ocean.  I thought that was pretty cool, but few of my students had ever been to the ocean.  About that time, a parent made a donation to my classroom of a laundry bin shaped like a basketball net.  That’s when I decided to start a program where kids could bring in aluminum cans, cleaned and crushed on Fridays. For every 10 cans they could try to make a basket with one of them for 1, 2 or 3 points of extra credit (the unlimited currency teachers wield). I found a parent with a mini-van and she said she’d pick up the cans on Friday after school and drop them at a recycling center in the neighborhood and bring me the voucher.  When I had enough vouchers, I turned them in for cash to pay for a bus to get the kids to the beach.  In those days, a bus for a field trip was about $300 and held 65 kids.  That year Michael helped me bring over 300 kids to the beach for an amazing clean-up!  

I continued that program the rest of my years in the classroom to fund field trips.  Michael now brings thousands of kids to the beach each May for the largest beach clean-up in the nation.

Describe your job. What’s trash got to do with it?

Fast forward, I moved from teaching to environmental compliance.  One of the big issues in construction and industrial activity is what to do with waste.  When working at LA Metro, our department started to take old vinyl banners no longer needed and turned them into reusable bags.  This became the “Banners to Bags” program, which is still active.  One day the CEO contacted me and asked if we could create something environmentally conscious to give to the bus operators for Operator’s Appreciation Day.  I had been wondering what we could do with the millions of bus tokens that just came out of circulation.  Sending them to be melted down for the metal was a huge GHG emissions burden.  I found Rewilder, who helped me. We cleaned a number of the tokens and made them into zipper pulls to put onto a pouch made from discarded air bag material.  It was a big hit.  The TAP department saw the potential and has been using more of the tokens to make badge holders, lapel pins and cuff links for sale at the Metro pop-up shops.  

This year I’ve decided to take my boat, Rhiannon on a race from Los Angeles to Hawaii in July 2025.  As part of preparations, I needed new sails.  Again, I called on Rewilder to help me turn my old sails into gear bags for the crew.  I still have more bags that I would love to give as gifts in exchange for generous donations to help us fund this adventure.  See www.RhiannonTranspac.com for more info.

What something you’ve seen or worked on in the world of waste that you found surprising, delightful or inspiring? 

When I was in my 20’s I was a modern dancer.  I had little money for costumes or sets so we’d watch the signs for trash pick up and would go out the evening before and see what we could find in people’s trash.  In just a few hours we’d have found enough pieces and parts to put together costumes and sets for the next performance. I think my favorite was a hat and back-pack made out of vacuum parts for a dance about traffic in Los Angeles where the dancers were the vehicles.  We did another dance where everyone had shutters from windows and used them as movable sets to create different spaces on stage.  The pieces of trash we found became the inspiration for the dance pieces we created.  

This can be dirty, sometimes disheartening work. What’s something in your work that brings you joy right now? 

Most days I see the unrealized opportunity to upcycle and recycle materials.  If those who produce packaging and other materials had to take back what wasn’t used or what was damaged, I’m sure they’d find other packaging options that reduced waste. In some industries I think this is starting to happen, but it takes pressure on all sides. In construction, the contractor does what the owner requires, so if the owner requires that waste is upcycled, recycled or otherwise beneficially reused, it will be.  The projects I work on must recycle 100% of concrete, asphalt, wood and other organics and metals. Overall, the project must divert at least 85% of non-hazardous waste from landfill.  This is great, and we regularly do better than this, but we can do more. I think the new requirement for EPDs and requiring companies to publicly post their waste reduction levels will help.  It’s like gamifying the system.  We want to be better than our competition, right? If that means producing less trash or recycling more of what we have, then we’ll focus on doing that.

Whether I’m walking in my neighborhood or at work, there is much more we can be doing. It’s easy to get disheartened, but this is also opportunity.  Just today I donated my old life raft to a sailing course.  I asked them what they’ll do with it when the class is over.  The teacher said, “I’ll take it to the dumpster.” I said, “no, that’s not an option. Take the fill canister to the hazardous waste recycling center around the corner.  Then, what can we do with the remaining raft material?” A class participant who’d been listening said she has a friend who’s an artist and could probably use the materials in an art piece.  Now we’re cooking! I can’t wait to see what things can be made from this. I feel like I’ve made 2 donations at once :-)  Once people know there are options, there’s new opportunity.