TRASH ACADEMY

What is Trash Academy?

Earning it the title of ‘Filthadelphia’, the trash and litter that defaces the streets of our city is an apt metaphor for the systematic devaluation of underserved communities. Litter and dumping is both an environmental and racial justice issue, disproportionately affecting black, brown and marginalized communities. In response to this pervasive injustice, Trash Academy, is an effective intergenerational “collaboratory” co-led by engaged residents of diverse backgrounds, artists, activists, and organizers to address the issues of trash.

Collectively, Trash Academy designs projects that deepen people’s understanding of litter, consumption, and the wastestream. Through innovative, creative methodologies the projects:

• strengthen the movement for environmental justice, 

• campaign for specific policy and/or regulatory change 

• divert materials from incinerators, landfills and accelerate circularity

Trash Academy educates through participatory research, teach-ins, and workshops, and uses games and public art as a disarming point of entry to build campaigns that drive proactive transformation of the waste stream to reduce its impact on people  in specific highly impacted neighborhoods here in Philadelphia and the planet at large.

To visit Trash Academy, go to https://www.trashacademy.org/