August Forum: Waste Management

One of the most challenging sustainability questions facing large urban centers such as New York City is how to handle all the waste that is produced here on a daily basis. New York City has struggled with this question long before the last landfill shut down on its soil in 2001. With no spare land to speak of and an ever-growing population of consumers, the city has had to step up to the challenge and propose novel solutions to handle the millions of tons of trash that are collected and processed annually. At our August forum, we will hear from specialists working in the field who will discuss their plans for decreasing the quantity and toxicity of materials sent to landfills, working towards Mayor De Blasio’s ambitious OneNYC goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030 (“0x30”).   Click here to register!

  Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 Time: 6:30 – 8:00pm Location: Florim Showroom 152 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016   Speakers:

• Ashlee Barker, Outreach Specialist, Apartment Programs, Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability, NYC Department of Sanitation
• Amanda Kaminsky, Founder, Building Product Ecosystems
• Benjamin Miller, Co-founder and Managing Member, ClosedLoops

Ashlee Barker, Outreach Specialist, Apartment Programs, Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability, NYC Department of Sanitation Ashlee Barker is an Outreach Specialist for Apartment Programs at the NYC Department of Sanitation Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability. She started with the agency in 2015 through an internship, and now works to assist NYC residents to improve waste management practices and to enroll residential buildings in recycling programs offered by DSNY. As part of her duties, she has visited and enrolled over 1,200 buildings throughout the five boroughs, and in doing so, received the “Accomplishment of the Month” award from her agency. Ashlee holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Baruch College.   Amanda Kaminsky, Founder, Building Product Ecosystems LLC Amanda Kaminsky is Founder of Building Product Ecosystems (BPE) LLC, convening industry innovators across disciplines to pragmatically evolve systemic health of large-scale building product manufacturing, use, and recycling. BPE LLC is seeking B Corp Certification. Before and during the early stages of BPE, Amanda led Sustainable Construction efforts at The Durst Organization from 2005-2015. There, Amanda collaborated extensively with project teams and supply chains to improve the health of materials and systems design, procurement, and operations including recycling. She also managed the creation of New York City’s first organics collection program in a high-rise residential building with DSNY, and across a full commercial building portfolio as well. Amanda is Chair of the Health Product Declaration Collaborative Board and is Board Secretary for Healthy Building Network. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia.   Benjamin Miller, Co-founder and Managing Member, ClosedLoops LLC Benjamin Miller is a co-founder and managing member of ClosedLoops LLC, an infrastructure planning and development firm dedicated to making cities more sustainable from the inside out. His work at ClosedLoops is currently focused on development of the High Line Corridor Pneumatic Waste-Collection Initiative. Ben is also the senior research associate for Freight Programs at the University Transportation Research Center, Region II. A former director of policy planning for the New York City Department of Sanitation (where he was the project manager and principal author of the City’s first Solid Waste Management Plan), he is the author of Fat of the Land: Garbage in New York, the Last 200 Years.As an academic researcher and environmental policy analyst specializing in waste and freight, he has conducted studies on a range of urban infrastructural issues for academic, governmental, and other entities. He is presently writing a history of freight planning in the New York metropolitan region.