Recycling - Louise Bruce

This Forum of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley (www.humanists.org) was held on 3/28/2020. To see all of our Forum videos, please visit vimeo.com/hcsv.

Louise Bruce discusses "Recycling".

Each year Californians discard and landfill 38 million tons of garbage. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 young Californians will experience homelessness this year and unemployment is growing to record highs. One organization, the San Jose Conservation Corps (SJCC), seeks to simultaneously foster a healthier environment while building economic opportunity for Silicon Valley's young adults experiencing barriers to employment by providing innovative job training. At our upcoming meeting, Louise Bruce, SJCC's Director of Zero Waste and Recycling will share how their organization is capturing value and resources from our local waste stream and training the next generation of zero waste professionals.

Louise Bruce joined the San Jose Conservation Corps as Zero Waste & Recycling Director in October 2019. She devoted her early career to advancing composting and organic waste recycling in New York City, as a key climate change intervention. Louise oversaw the NYC Department of Sanitation’s (DSNY) organics programs, including the implementation of the nation’s largest municipal food and yard waste recycling program, which now serves 3.5 million residents. During her tenure with DSNY, she also created and implemented the inaugural NYC Food Waste Fair, developed an updated curriculum for the NYC Master Composter Program and grew the City’s community composting and food scrap drop-off operations. Louise earned a Master of Urban Planning degree from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University. In 2016, she was awarded The University of California Global Food Initiative’s 30 Under 30 distinction.

To learn more about Louise and her previous work in New York City, check out this 2017 interview with FoodPrint: https://foodprint.org/blog/louise-bru....

(Note: The opening and closing music in the video is Copyright (c) 2017 Brian J. Davis All Rights Reserved)