The Trouble with Trash

What is a landfill, and how does it create electricity? Why can’t you recycle plastic bags? What can you recycle? Watch the videos below, and find out. Students in the Restored Spaces Trash Academy program traveled to ReCommunity Recycling Center and the Bucks County Landfill Complex to learn more about what happens after you drop that plastic bottle in the bin.

Trash is part of the landscape of our city, and it’s a complicated issue. Projects like Trash Academy help us talk about environmental justice, and build community ownership and caretaking of public spaces like the streets all around us.  The City is taking this issue seriously, with the new Zero Waste initiative, which aims to have Philadelphia sending 0% (!) of its trash to landfills by 2035.

Earth Day 2018 is this Sunday, April 22, but every day is a good day to talk about sustainability. So what’s in your recycling bin?