Name: Lars Olsen

Social Justice Group: 2018-2019, Environment: Plastic Pollution

Date of Fieldwork: February 6, 2019

Name of Organization: Sims Recycling Center

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles:

Type of Fieldwork: Tour of Organization

What I did:

Our group went on a tout of the recycling center. We got to see where all the plastic get sorted, and we got more info on our topic.

What I learned:

I learned that recycling from Brooklyn comes by truck, recycling from the Bronks and Queens comes by boat, and that downtown Manhattan gives to a center in New Jersey. I learned cool details about how they sorted like how they have microscopic scans that detect what type of material the object is. They also have the only industrial size wind turbine.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

I learned that there are a lot of small details that people don’t know about my topic. A few examples are how you need to keep the cap on the bottle when you recycle. Also how you are not supposed to bend drink cartons when recycling because it messes up the system. Now before I went there, my family did the opposite of both even when we were trying to help. The thing is, I feel this information is hard to reach. I realized that we need to spread the word about these things. Most people don’t recycle anyways, 9% of all plastic is recycled. I think it is partly because people are lazy and don’t care, but I also think people are not informed. People deny climate change because its not personal. Plastic is. If someone went to everyone’s house and told them all the things plastic does to you body, I think the % of recycling would go way up.