R E D U C E R E U S E R EC YC L E
The Green Project
ALMOST THIRTY YEARS OF FOSTERING CREATIVE SUSTAINABILITY IN NEW ORLEANS
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Story by Matt A. Sheen • Photos by Alexandra Kennon
or nearly thirty years, The Green Project has worked to preserve the natural beauty of New Orleans and inspire local citizenry to do the same. The roots of the project began in 1994 when Linda Stone and artist Suzanne Durham officially founded the Mid-City Green Project, a community initiative combining recycling and art. “We wanted to do something that was creative and also good for the environment, putting our two sets of skills and interests together,” remembered Stone, who was at the time working as a writer and researcher for the Office of Environmental Epidemiology at the Louisiana Office of Public Health. Stone studied up on how to start a nonprofit, and the duo conducted a search for a suitable place for the project, ultimately choosing the Goldseal Dairy on D’Hemecourt and S. Alexander Streets in Mid-City, a large, almost-empty structure with a lot of outdoor space. Prior to her role with the Office of Public Health, Stone worked as a research assistant at The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation. There, she gained experience working to improve problems associated with urban runoff and its impact on the lake, especially when it comes to paint. She noticed that there were no programs at the time to address the problems caused by paint being poured down drains and getting into the local waterbodies, where it was becoming a major pollutant.
“Recycling paint, just like recycling most products, saves energy and resources that would be used in making a brand new product from virgin materials when you take into account the extraction, processing and packaging of new materials,” explained the Green Project’s current Environmental Education and Outreach Coordinator Erin Genrich. “Latex paint contains chemicals like solvents that can damage the environment if disposed of improperly. If poured down the storm drain here, the paint goes right out to Lake Pontchartrain without any treatment. Additionally, if paint is dumped, it contributes to groundwater contamination. And if latex paint is responsibly disposed of by hardening, it will end up in a landfill, where it will take up space.” Through the Mid-City Green Project, Stone decided to start the Paint Exchange, a latex paint recycling program, with help from a one thousand dollar matching grant being offered by Entergy New Orleans for creative projects benefitting the environment. “Then I had to figure out how to execute it,” she said. Stone assembled a board of directors made up of neighbors, local businessespeople, representatives from the New Orleans Department of Sanitation, local environmentalists, activists in the community, and students from Ben Franklin High School’s ecological club. The board helped to spread the word by passing around press releases wrapped around little paint brushes.
“The first Saturday we opened in October of 1994, we [received] a lot of paint, and all the neighborhood children showed up and wanted to do something,” Stone recalled. “Suzanne put them to work painting old flower pots and chairs that she found in the back garden area of the dairy building.” Soon after, Stone and Durham incorporated an organic gardening component into their programs, making use of all the protected outdoor space. They sold the produce at the then-newly-opened Crescent City Farmers Market. “I was able to get us a number of grants from local foundations to fund summer programs for children, and further develop our paint recycling and garden programs,” Stone said. “The city also placed a large container outside the dairy where people could drop off paper, cans, and glass to recycle.” In 1996, the Green Project started the Building Materials Exchange, which sold donated architectural salvage that could be reused or repurposed to local builders and creatives. “After Katrina, many architectural building parts that would have been lost found their way to The Green Project,” said Stone. The program received the Environmental Protection Agency’s first Sustainability grant. In 1998 the organization, no longer quite so neighborhood-centric, was retitled simply The Green Project, and under Stone’s successor Renee Allie, the facility was moved to its current location on Marais Street in the Bywater. The organic garden didn’t // J U N E 2 1
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