The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s (ILSR) Composting for Community Initiative has collaborated with partners in Baltimore to advance scalable, community-driven composting sites, aiming to shift leadership, power, and resources to the community level. This article showcases the progress made and challenges faced in our work with Community Composters in Baltimore.… Read More
Stephanie Compton and Dante Swinton, Energy Justice Network, a national organization based in Philadelphia with a long record of work in Baltimore, are working to extend the impact of deconstruction on Baltimore as an extension of EJN’s efforts to close the downtown garbage incinerator, increase recycling through block leader programs and coordinate community efforts toward Zero Waste.… Read More
ILSR has been assisting grass roots organizations in Baltimore to fend off new incinerators and shut down an existing aging and polluting garbage incinerator in Downtown Baltimore, planning for and implementing Zero Waste practices. These practices would also help the city and communities address other pressing problems in the city; including the need for more good jobs, reduced recidivism, elimination of the ‘digital divide’, and creation of new small businesses, community based food production and environmental education.
The following article makes suggestions for transforming the current recycling system, and an update on community based activity in the context of rapidly changing markets, technology and entrepreneurial opportunities.… Read More
The digital divide has only become more pronounced with the pandemic, prompting Baltimore officials to make moves in the direction of something exciting: building a city-owned, open access fiber network.… Read More
Diane Wittner’s Comments Sent to Michael Beichler, Solid Waste Management Bureau Chief, Baltimore County, MD, December 21, 2021. … Read More
Carlos Sanchez, a Baltimore high-school student and youth organizer for Free Your Voice and Fair Development Land Trust, responded to the announcement of a new Zero Waste Commission for the City with a thought-provoking op/ed in Baltimore Brew. He notes that a plan already developed by the community – with ambitious goals and revenue sources – will do more to end health-harming air pollution than the entity the City Council is proposing.… Read More
In an op/ed published in Baltimore Brew on July 6, ILSR’s Neil Seldman urges Baltimore city officials to put a windfall of new funding towards a better approach to its existing recycling system, rather than investing in new carts while retaining its current “outmoded and inefficient” system.… Read More
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance is partnering with the Baltimore City Department of Public Works’ GROW Center to host this series of virtual workshops on home composting.… Read More
As part of ILSR’s Baltimore Composting for Community Project, we are supporting about a dozen community compost sites in the city. This month we hosted two events in Baltimore to build DIY compost screeners designed for the community scale.… Read More
