Name: Paloma Sherak

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Environment: Microplastics

Date of Fieldwork: February 15, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):SIMS Recycling Center

Type of Fieldwork: Tour of Organization

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

On February 15, 2023, we went on a tour of SIMS recycling center to see how the recycling process works. SIMS recycling center is a recycling center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Kara Napolitano, the tour guide, was very nice and helpful, and told us a lot of interesting facts. She explained that SIMS recycling center is a materials recovery facility, or a MRF. This means that they go through plastic, and other recyclable materials, and sort them out.

Kara also explained how and why different things are recyclable, and which bin they are supposed to go in. While this may seem simple, there are some things that might surprise you. For example, milk cartons go in the blue bin(where plastic goes in) instead of the green bin(where paper goes in). This is because the cartons are coated with a thin layer of plastic so that the milk doesn’t seep through the carton. This surprised me because I had always thought that cartons would go in the green bin.

We also how the different types of recyclable materials were sorted out. In SIMS recycling center, there was an interactive room for tours that explained how plastic was sorted out. This was very interesting, and we learned a lot from it. It was really interesting to see how they sorted the materials out my size, if it was magnetic or not, by hand, and more! We also got to see the real process. It was really interesting to see it, and I learned a lot from it.