Group makes recycling a community venture

By AMBER PERRY amber@appenmedia.com

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Green Cell, the Alpharetta-based nonprofit, is endearingly scrappy, but it packs a punch with more than 100 volunteers.

The group leads a number of ecoconscious projects that service other cities in Fulton County, like Johns Creek, as well as Forsyth and Gwinnett counties.

Green Cell is also looking to engage communities outside of the state by setting up utensil banks in Charlotte and one in Texas. The project loans coolers and utensils for low-waste gatherings. By loaning utensils in 2022, Pankaj Rajankar said more than 100,000 singleuse utensils were eliminated.

Rajankar, who co-founded Green Cell in 2018 with Sandesh Shinde, said the idea for Green Cell started with a wellliked Facebook post spreading environmental awareness.

“My comment on that was, ‘These likes don’t matter,’” Rajankar said.

He said everybody points a finger and asks others to change their habits, yet they hold a plastic bottle or don’t own reusable grocery bags.

“Unless all human beings change and ask for this change, the change is not going to happen,” Rajankar said.

He along with board member Vijay Desai and youth coordinator Ramya Shivkumar sat inside the Dunkin’ Donuts off North Main Street in Alpharetta sharing Green Cell milestones. Shivkumar’s young but forward-thinking daughter was there, too, and said she wants to move to California because the state is banning plastic bags.

Desai pointed out the window to call out the harmful transportation of pine straw used to beautify the parking lot’s medians. The area already has a lot of pine trees, but Desai said the needles are mostly transported from Florida.

“It’s crazy that they are actually spending carbon to bring [those] pine needles and spread it here when we could just simply leave the leaves alone,” Desai said impassioned, with comments on an alternative like spreading composted soil.

Composting was one focus of the Feb. 9 discussion. But Shivkumar also brought news about an upcoming youth sustainability conference hosted by Green Cell in September, the first of its kind in the state in a decade.