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A – The Leadership:
Priscilla E. Hayes, Esq. is the Director of the Solid Waste Resource Renewal Group, which works primarily to promote conversion of the resources found in solid waste into innovative new products. Ms. Hayes co-founded the SWRRG with Dr. Adesoji Adelaja in 1997.
Ms. Hayes has become one of the primary experts on food and organics recycling in the state, and is the primary author of a major report to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Connecting Large Scale Generators and Markets Of Food Residuals: Study Of Success/Failure Factors For Food Residuals Recycling, completed in June 2004. Ms. Hayes was a team leader on a just-completed study for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities; the study quantified biomass, including food and other organic wastes, which are available in the state and examined technologies to convert this biomass to energy or fuel.
B – The Organization
About the Solid Waste Resource Renewal Group: For over ten years, the Solid Waste Resource Renewal Group (SWRRG) at the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station had provided leadership and coordination in various innovative waste reduction and recycling focus areas, including food waste, computers, fluorescent light bulbs, mercury-containing devices, waste paint and green purchasing/environmentally preferable purchasing. Through the only New Jersey-wide food residuals recycling initiative, SWRRG has brought together waste generators, recyclers, and government to find optimal ways of diverting food waste away from methane production in landfills and into production of energy and soil amendments, which are vitally needed in the State and adjoining region. SWRRG has provided assistance to entrepreneurs and generators planning systems, conducted research, outreach and created website and other tools for all stakeholders. SWRRG has also done numerous waste audits and facility visits, and planned many events, as well as made many presentations in this area.
The Mission: To transform the usage and disposal of materials/resources and energy through a combination of innovative and practical technology research, waste minimization, green purchasing, and the creative reuse of material formerly viewed as waste.
To use these transformation tactics to help meet pressing policy needs of the state and the country, including creation of clean, secure energy sources, reduction of air and water pollution, and of climate change, and local green economic development. And to constructively highlight the ways in which usage and disposal of materials/resources and energy are at the root of every environmental challenge and consequence.
Upcoming Events: SWRRG’s upcoming events include a forum on Creating a Cost Effective Food Waste Wasteshed, being scheduled in January or early February, to take place at the Princeton Hyatt Regency.
Two county based food waste forums are already scheduled for January 8, 2009, at the Hudson County Forum at St. Peter’s College, Jersey City; and March 19, 2009, at the Union County Forum at Kean University.
C – The GREEN 10-Q’s:
1. What childhood, personal, or career eco-experience inspired your current work?
I wanted to be an American Indian when I grew up, as a child. I discovered the song “My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying,” by Buffy Sainte-Marie in high school. I lived in Guam when they were still flying bombing missions to Viet Nam, hung around with army brats, and went to anti-war movies. All of that led me into helping start the Women’s Center at Princeton University, becoming a civil rights lawyer, becoming an environmental lawyer, and somehow bringing it all together in my current position.
2. Who inspires you in our Philadelphia community?
I am inspired by the work of Maurice Sampson in innovative recycling and sustainability in the Philadelphia community (on-site composting for the White Dog Café and other businesses with it). The people who brought Recycle Bank to Philadelphia also inspire me. And I am inspired by Philabundance, and their amazing ways of finding food for the hungry, including using leftover fresh produce from local markets. Now they want to compost the fraction of food which cannot be used—more recycling.
3. What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?
I am especially proud of bringing the Solid Waste Resource Renewal Group to where it is now—offering people help in recycling some of the non-traditional things, and working with schools to make sure that the classroom message on recycling is consistent with the behavior in the school (too many schools don’t recycle).
4. What is one of your favorite Philly eco-activities, products, or services?
The Sustainable Business Network. I want to get to more events this year.
5. What is one of the things that you regularly do to make your life more eco-friendly?
What else—I compost. I also take bottles and cans home from meetings to recycle them.
6. What would you change about your home or office to make it more eco-friendly?
I am addicted to paper. I would love to use less of it.
7. What would you change about Philly to make it more eco-friendly?
Have more food waste recycling from restaurants and other food generating businesses.
8. What book, movie, or TV show would you recommend people to read or watch?
Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, by William Bryan Logan; a charming and fascinating introduction to all sorts of things which relate to soil/dirt. Did you know dung beetles attach themselves to dung as it comes down from monkeys doing a group poop in rainforest trees?
9. In addition to your family and friends, what three people living or dead would you take to live with you for a decade on a deserted island?
Dar Williams and Dan Wilson to sing to me, Tom Brown, Jr. to help me survive.
10. What quote (with source) or your own words of wisdom would you like to share with our readers?
- “In the air the questions hang,
Will we get to do something,
Who we gonna end up being,
How we gonna end up feeling,
What you gonna spend your free life on?”
Dan Wilson, Free Life, from the album Free Life ©2007 American Recording Company, LLC.
“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen, Anthem.
For more information about the Solid Waste Resource Renewal Group or its Director, feel free to check out their website. And if this particular Philly Green Profile has inspired you to green up your life, take a look at GREENandSAVE.com, where you can find anything and everything green related.
