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| <back | home One Man's Trash is another Man's Treasure: Sustainable Energy & Sustainable Development in the South Bronx by Amy Landau For Omar Friella, the cultivation of sustainable energy is directly linked to sustainable economics. Those of us without blinders know that we can’t expect a livable environment for the human race (or all living things, for that matter) without cleaner, more renewable energy. But how does making a living fit into the equation? It’s an important question because the bottom line is that we can’t have either without sustainable employment. No one knows this better than Freilla, a life-long resident of the South Bronx in New York City, a region known for its rampant unemployment. A leader in the environmental justice movement, Freilla grew up during the height of the 1980’s crack scene, amidst burnt-out buildings, waste transfer stations and power plants. At the same time, he spent his childhood watching the PBS TV show “Nature,” dazzled by scenes of pristine wilderness – the rainforest, the mountains and the arctic. “There was one thing that always bothered me about those shows, though,” he recalled at a talk he gave at the 2005 Bioneers Conference — a gathering of environmental visionaries in San Rafael, CA. “You never saw any people on them.” We are not accustomed to thinking about the South Bronx as “the environment,” but to Freilla and those who live there, it is nothing but. He is quick to point out the gross inequities encountered in this region, recently named the poorest urban county in the United States. Twenty-five percent of the entire city’s waste stream is handled here as well as over half of the city’s sewage sludge. (By contrast, Manhattan handles none.) The city’s trash is hauled here each day by a parade of diesel spewing trucks to no less than fifteen waste transfer stations within a one mile radius (Hunts Point and Port Morris). Garbage is then trucked to out-of-state landfills. The result? According to the NYC Department of Health, the South Bronx has one of the highest rates of hospitalization for children with asthma, an unsurprising statistic, given the region’s poor air quality. Freilla has hit upon an ingenious solution, however. He wants to turn the local waste transfer stations into re-use centers for the community. Through his creation of the Green Worker Cooperatives, he wants to launch what he calls “a worker-owned Home Depot in the South Bronx.” All of the usable interior building material destined for landfill would be recycled into functional items such as cabinets, floors and doors. In addition to conserving energy, a re-use center would serve a dual purpose for residents: reducing pollution and creating healthy job opportunities. The center would reduce diesel traffic and offer a healthy, environmentally-sustainable job alternative to residents pressed to work in polluting facilities. With a board of directors already in place, Freilla reports that members of the community are delighted by the idea. “It makes sense. We need jobs. People are tired of pollution, tired of asthma. People are hungry for a solution.” The most immediate challenge faced by Green Worker Cooperatives, however, is financing the warehouse space. Commercial real estate in New York City is a costly $10 per square foot as opposed to the typical $3 cost for the Bay area. Freilla hopes to gain financial backing from the city to turn his plan into a city-wide project. As the recipient of $50,000 dollars from the Union Square Awards, he and Green Worker Cooperatives are off to a very good start. Freilla also devotes his time to other environmental justice campaigns, such as the current fight against a new power plant in Hunts Point, already the location of numerous waste transfer stations. He is also working with over 40 other groups on the “Zero Waste Campaign” to push the city toward a 20-year zero waste management plan. The Zero Waste Campaign also has an economic rationale: it will minimize the enormous costs of waste export from the city, keeping dollars circulating within the local economy rather than shipping them out of state, along with the waste. To those detractors who argue that protecting the environment is at odds with jobs and economic development, Freilla offers a hopeful antidote: the worker-owned cooperative. This re-emerging model recognizes the financial needs of workers within a much more democratic system than what we’ve come to expect. The typical hierarchy of the workplace is turned on its head with workers’ co-owning the business and splitting the profits. If implemented city-wide, Friella’s Green Worker Cooperatives would drastically reduce the number of diesel trucks needed to cart waste to distant regions for landfill. His vision would decrease energy consumption and depletion of environmental resources — thus minimizing global warming effects while improving the quality of life for residents. At the same time, Freilla’s Green Worker Cooperatives would address the economic realities of the region through the creation of an entirely new class of workers in the South Bronx – not blue collar or white collar — but what he likes to call “green collar.” Amy Landau is HopeDance’s roving reporter living in New York City. She can be reached at Amy.Landau@gmail.com. <back | top^ |