CLEAN MEMPHIS

Environmental issues can seem both overwhelming and distant. However, all of us play a role in shaping our immediate environments through everyday habits. Clean Memphis bridges the gap between abstract ideas and concrete local actions by teaching in classrooms, leading clean-up efforts and strategizing with city leaders and partners on how to prevent waste.

Founded in 2008 to foster a cleaner and greener city, Clean Memphis works to inspire Memphians to be environmental stewards grounded in civic responsibility. The organization currently operates a variety of programs including Environmental Education, Project Green Fork, Community Engagement, the Memphis Food Waste Project and Memphis Transformed.

The Environmental Education Program provides free, standards-based environmental education to schools in Memphis and Shelby County. We teach predominantly in under-resourced schools, in regular patterns so that students will have the opportunity to participate in Clean Memphis programming in more than one grade throughout their education.

National studies indicate that approximately one and one-half pounds of trash are produced for each restaurant meal that is served and the average restaurant produces 50,000 pounds of garbage per year. Project Green Fork (PGF) was founded in 2008 as a reaction to this statistic, out of a desire to contribute to the sustainability of our community and a passion for supporting local restaurants. Go to projectgreenfork.org to see a list of PGF-certified restaurants.

The Memphis Food Waste Project (MFWP) leads efforts to reduce food waste by residents, businesses and the hospitality industry. Since 2019 MFWP has formulated comprehensive food waste reduction strategies by sector, met regularly with city and county leadership to advocate for food waste reduction policy and helped to make connections between surplus food and people experiencing food insecurity. Take the quiz at memphistransformed.typeform.com to see how and where good food is lost every day.

The Community Engagement program brings together service projects by local and neighborhood leaders. More than merely cleaning up litter, Clean Memphis is also leading the charge to study its composition and geo-locations through use of the app Litterati. A community classroom (coming soon) will provide a free online platform for citizens to learn about topics like the local watershed, reducing food waste at home and the basics of a circular economy.

Memphis Transformed serves as a platform to share and amplify the stories of those in the trenches making Memphis a cleaner, greener city. Established in 2019, this project of Clean Memphis spreads the good news of local organizations and leaders who are sharing the work of improving the Bluff City.

Everyone needs clean air, clean water and healthy soil. At Clean Memphis, we believe all of these are within our collective power to protect and improve for generations to come. A cleaner, greener city is ours to create.