2023 is off to a great start as you will see when you take a look at the stories in out newsletter where we both review 2022 and check out some great opportunities to gather and learn in 2023. You’ll see updates about the Organics Summit in April and the Federation of NY Solid Waste Associations sponsored Conference in May and find out what about other efforts from NYSAR³ ’s committees, councils and our members. There’s also information that any member of our College Council will want to review as the annual Grant Application is out!

Speaking of saying goodbye, if you were able to join us at the awards Luncheon on the last day of the NYSAR³ annual conference you heard a heartfelt THANK YOU to our long-time coordinator Lisa Ruggero who has taken a full-time position with the Syracuse University Center of Sustainable Community Solutions (CSCS). Lisa had been our Coordinator for over 10 years and has been able to do amazing things for our organization working only 10 hours a week! We greatly appreciate her tremendous efforts for over a decade and know that NYSAR³ has been extremely lucky to have benefitted from her dedication, knowledge, contacts and just overall tremendous can-do attitude that has helped to grow and strengthen our efforts in this field. Fortunately, we work closely with the CSCS, so Lisa is not going to get rid of us and we very much look forward to continuing to benefit from working with this dynamic sustainable materials management professional. As a NSYAR³ member, you have all probably gotten very used to seeing communications from “Lisa@NSYAR3.org,” so keep your eye out for some new emails and new faces that will be providing critical staff assistance for our many programs in 2023 and beyond.

And speaking of the Annual Conference, we had another amazing and diverse program from November 14-16, 2022. We certainly could not have done any of this without the dedication of the members of the Conference Committee and the leadership from Kelli Timbrook and Bodhi Piedmont-Fleischmann. This year we saw the return of our Pre-conference day followed by two more days filled with diverse presentations which prompted many discussions and connections related to reuse, reduction, recycling and composting. Our Vendor Exhibit Hall also featured a Repair Café created and run by the NSYAR³ Reuse Committee. This event which ran throughout the Conference was well received which reinforces the importance of REUSE as the NYSAR³ Board works on all aspects of waste reduction and recycling. The Community Reuse grant award was also presented as part of the Reuse Café program. Please check out the highlights of the conference offered in the newsletter to find out more.

As you think about ways to enhance your work in this field, I do encourage our members to join one or more of our diverse committees and councils, which can be found here. It is through the efforts of our board members and volunteers that NYSAR³ is able to achieve goals and objectives. If you have questions, or want to find out more, don’t hesitate to contact me at President@nysar3.org or the Committee Chair.

NYSAR³ President

The annual summit is an excellent opportunity to connect with more than 190 organics professionals and local leaders to share success stories, learn about emerging issues, develop networks and partnerships, and discuss creative solutions to help advance sustainable organics management across NYS. Current NYSAR³ members are eligible to attend at a discounted rate. Registration is now open. Sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities are also available. 

Questions about the summit can be directed to Organics Council Chair Jesse Kerns at jekerns@syr.edu.

Registration Now Open!

The Conference includes:

W4R, or Womxn for Reduction, Reuse, Recycling, and Rethinking Strategies for Managing Materials, is an NYSAR³ Committee working on connecting womxn of all stages of their education and careers through a variety of in-person and online opportunities. We provide opportunities to connect through featured speakers, panels, group dialogue, mentorship, and professional development. 

Chapters 1 and 2 had a wonderful end-of-year event in Brooklyn to celebrate our community involved in sustainability, zero waste, and materials management. NYSAR³ provided delicious appetizers, but we want to send special thanks to TRUE Certification, the Sanitation Foundation (check out their application for the zero waste academy), and Women and Climate for being excellent cosponsors. We also want to send a big shout-out to Naama and the team from Lighthouse for hosting and Botanist Gin for sponsoring the drinks! Kudos to the great work looking ahead from the Lighthouse on the community composter program; take a look and see if you can donate!

We are looking forward to more events like this in the coming year to help grow the downstate NYSAR³ community. If you have any great ideas for venues or tours that could be fun for everyone to attend, please send them our way.

On September 16th, NYSAR³ members from Region 8 and Region 9 visited the new Ecoverde Organics compost site located in Akron NY.

NYSAR³ College Council grants, supported by the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I), are awarded through a competitive application process designed to provide a limited number of awards to New York State Universities and colleges. This year, NYSAR³ and NYSP2I will provide up to $10,000.00 for projects that focus on source reduction, reuse, or recycling. Each member institution is eligible to apply for project funding up to $5,000.00. Project proposals that incorporate pollution prevention will be more competitive in the grant evaluation process.

The Recycling Leadership Awards hosted by NYSAR³ are designed to recognize outstanding achievers for their dedication, innovation, and passion for working on ways to lessen our impact on the planet. The awards were presented during closing luncheon at the annual New York State Recycling Conference in Cooperstown on November 16th. Winners were nominated by those who believed they should be held up as models of excellence for their efforts in waste prevention, reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting in New York State.  

NYSAR³ is happy to announce our returning at-large board members who were reelected to their seats during the November 2022 elections!

In spring of 2022, NYSAR³ hosted the NY Recycles! Poster contest open to all students in grades K-12. The intention of this contest is to spread the messages of waste reduction, recycling, and composting to young people. Students were asked to create an art piece based on one of the following themes: New York Recycles!, Reduce Your Single Use, Composting is a Heap of Fun!, and Let’s Put Litter in its Place!. The posters were to be representative of the themes in a creative way, showing the student’s own viewpoints on the topics.

Over 45,000 tons of food waste have been diverted from landfill by NYS entities that have taken advantage of the Food Waste Reduction and Diversion Reimbursement Program.

The conversations were robust, the connections profound, the intentions for future zoom meetings and additional summits were even better than anticipated. We determined that with the continued collaboration between CR0WD, several of the participating universities, NYSAR³ and statewide policymakers that we would be able to bring important deconstruction legislation to NY State.

CET has contracted with industry-leading specialists to provide the best possible assistance to program participants. Contact us today to learn more! Call 866-306-0911 or Email RethinkFoodWasteNY@cetonline.org.

The Center for Sustainable Materials Management (CSMM) and Green Business Certification Inc. are proud to announce the continuation of their partnership with a call for projects for businesses in New York State to achieve TRUE Certification for zero waste.

Interested projects should fill out the application form by March 31, 2023.

Repair Café Hudson Valley had another busy year in 2022, holding 69 free repair cafes all over the Hudson Valley, Catskills and Capital Regions. Next year promises to divert even more items from the waste stream, with 41 different locations lined up to host repair cafes. The number one fix requested at a repair café continues to be lamps but we also fixed cuckoo clocks, sharpened knives and scissors, restrung pearls, hemmed and patched garments, restored many a vacuum and fan, and even kept a couple of children’s ATVs out of the landfill. Repair Cafes count towards points for the Climate Smart Communities program and are a great community-building event. If you are interested in bringing a Repair Café to your town, please reach out to the Repair Café Hudson Valley Coordinator Suzie Fromer at fromer@sustainhv.org.

New York’s new paint stewardship program, operated by PaintCare, launched in May of 2022. Since then, the nonprofit stewardship organization, created and led by the paint industry, has established over 265 drop-off sites throughout the state, with paint retailers, municipalities, and reuse stores joining together to provide convenient, year-round paint recycling opportunities.

The program is coordinated by NYSAR³ members Sandra Vera, Michael Rieser, Kelsey O’Toole, Wes Baxter, and Andrew Radin, who continue to add additional drop-off locations, making it significantly more convenient for households, schools, and businesses to responsibly recycle paint, stain, varnish, and a variety of other architectural coatings products.

Operations and programs are expanding at GreenSheen Paint and we’re excited to share a few recent accomplishments!

In New York, GreenSheen operates a door-to-door paint collection service for residents in Albany and Rotterdam with at least 10 gallons of paint. Through the paint stewardship program, there is also a network of paint drop-off sites where leftover paint can be taken to for recycling. GreenSheen also hosted paint collection events this past fall that were very successful. We partnered with Sustainable Saratoga in October and collected over 60,000 pounds of paint from the community; events at Honest Weight Food Co-Op in Albany and in Fort Edward in Washington County brought in 47,000 and 48,000 pounds of leftover paint respectively. And we’re planning more collection events for 2023! 

While GreenSheen recycles paint collected through paint stewardship programs, the plastic paint containers (1-gallon cans and 5-gallon buckets) are not currently recycled or covered under the law. While traditional recyclers won’t accept these containers for recycling, GreenSheen is determined to find a solution! We have purchased three plastic shredders for our facilities in CO, NY and WA. Soon we will begin shredding plastic and sending that regrind to be recycled back into paint containers. Additionally, in CO we received grant funding to create a paint bucket wash line so buckets can also be washed and reused rather than recycled. The grant project, in tandem with the shredding operation, will close the loop on our bucket supply chain, while diverting a valuable waste stream from landfills!