090: Trash Academy - Communicating Consumption and Waste through Activism & Advocacy with Ron Whyte
A Sustainable Mind - environment & sustainability podcast
Marjorie Alexander
4.6 • 588 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trash Academy, a project of Mural Arts Philadelphia's Environmental Justice department, is an intergenerational collaboration of young people, seasoned activists, artists, non-profits, local government, and concerned citizens of diverse backgrounds. These interventions are geared to complicate and deepen people's understanding of litter, consumption, and waste and shift attitudes from passive acceptance to proactive responses to the waste stream. Collectively, they design projects that add surprising and interesting elements to the urban landscape using fun group activities and games, teach-ins, workshops, and three Trash Mobiles providing on-site art and creativity studios at neighborhood events and locales.
Today's Sponsors:
Climate Talks is a new podcast exploring sustainability and the ways that we communicate about the climate. Catch season 1 now as host Sophia Li interviews climate optimists, investigating the steps we can take to work towards a more sustainable future. https://pod.link/1592523204
In this episode Marjorie and Ron discuss:
- Some of the challenges with waste in Philadelphia and how Trash Academy is educating people of all ages about the true impact of waste in our communities
- How the Trash Mobile and other activities use concepts like gamification to have a lasting impact that traditional PSAs and non-interactive signage have not been able to accomplish
- How parents can help their children better understand the concept of trash
- Good first steps for how to get involved in issues you care about in your own community
Resources mentioned in today's episode:
- Vanessa Nakate - read her UN profile here: https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/vanessa-nakate/
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- Vanessa's organization: Youth for Future Africa: https://www.facebook.com/YOUTH-for-Future-Africa-112041190182345/
- Archive.org, is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson: http://www.rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx
Connect with Trash Academy:
- Website: https://www.trashacademy.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trash.academy/
Connect with Marjorie Alexander:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asustainablemind/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SustainableMind
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/asustainablemind/
- Website: http://www.asustainablemind.com
Interested in sponsoring or supporting A Sustainable Mind? Visit our sponsorship page at ASustainableMind.com/sponsor!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One thing we're trying to get people to understand is that when you go to a store and see all these different products, they don't just, you know, magically appear there. |
| 0:08.5 | They actually have to be manufactured and a lot of them have different components and they're shipped from different places. |
| 0:15.6 | And for example, even one little smart tablet or something that has hundreds of different components that came |
| 0:22.4 | from all over the world and starting, you know, getting people to think about the effects |
| 0:27.9 | of their consumption and the fact that, you know, while we should put pressure on corporations, |
| 0:31.9 | definitely, like, we have to also look at how, you know, we're participating in this and |
| 0:36.1 | the fact that if we keep buying these products, they're just going to keep making them. |
| 0:42.4 | This is a sustainable mind, where we delve into the minds behind today's most impactful |
| 0:48.2 | environmental campaigns, organizations, and startups, inspiring the environmental change makers of tomorrow. |
| 0:56.2 | I'm your host, Marjorie Alexander. |
| 0:59.3 | Today on episode 90, we are joined by Ron White of Trash Academy, a project of Mural Arts |
| 1:06.3 | Philadelphia's Environmental Justice Department. |
| 1:09.4 | Trash Academy is an intergenerational |
| 1:11.5 | collaboration of young people, seasoned activists, artists, nonprofits, local |
| 1:18.0 | government, and concerned citizens from diverse backgrounds. These interventions are |
| 1:23.7 | geared to complicate and deepen people's understanding of litter, consumption and waste, |
| 1:29.3 | and shift their attitudes from passive acceptance to proactive responses to the waste stream. |
| 1:35.3 | Collectively, they design projects that add surprising and interesting elements to the urban landscape |
| 1:41.3 | using fun group activities and games, teach-ins, workshops, |
| 1:46.5 | and three trashmobiles providing on-site art creativity studios at neighborhood events and |
| 1:53.4 | locales. Ron, welcome to the show. Hi, Marjorie. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, absolutely. |
| 1:59.9 | So I do want to get a little bit personal here at the beginning. |
... |
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