The Green Project’s logo. Image belongs to The Green Project and is used within the limits of Fair Use.
The Green Project’s mission is “to develop a culture of creative reuse by building a marketplace for reclaimed materials and cultivating respect for their value” (The Green Project. http://www.thegreenproject.org).
The Green Project was founded in 1994 by Linda Stone as a small paint-recycling center used to dispose of unused paint without harming the environment. It has since evolved into the recycling hub of New Orleans and serves as a center to purchase or donate materials such as lumber, bricks, nails, and other recyclables (The green Project). The green project “operates a warehouse, lumberyard, paint recycling center, electronic waste recycling drop-offs, grease collection for biodiesel, and conducts environmental education programming on weekends” (Nola.com. “Salvations and the Green Project”. http://www.nola.com/nolavie/index.ssf/2011/04/salvations_and_the_green_proje.html).
The Green Project works to actively solicit materials from businesses, agencies, and the public and conducts regular environmental workshops that stress the importance of green living. The workshops focus on “the R’s of sustainability: reduce, reuse, reclaim, repair, recycle, repurpose, restore, [and] rehabilitate” (The Green Project). Current projects include Salvations Furniture, an exhibit held annually, and customer projects that showcase the Green Project materials. The Salvations Furniture show allows furniture designers, artists, and builders to create furniture using the recycled materials purchased from the Green Project and show off their talents. The customer projects are pictures of finished products using materials from the Green Project entered via the Facebook page or by e-mailing the organization.
The Green Project moves resources that would otherwise be wasted into valuable assets. Each year, about 2,000 tons of building materials are diverted from landfills and are made available to the public for building, repairing, and improves housing stock. The Green Project employs nineteen workers that are paid on average twelve dollars an hour with added benefits and health insurance. Each day, the organization diverts nearly 6 tons of material from the landfills. Due to Hurricane Katrina’s damage, the landfills of New Orleans have fewer years of effective life, so it is important to act to lesson their burden. As the sole paint recycling project in the entire Gulf South, The Green Project re-processes 40,000 gallons of paint each year (E-mail with Kaiti Tasker, Environmental Education Coordinator at the Green Project). If the paint were to enter the water system, it would cause significant damage to the water systems and wetlands of New Orleans. The salvaged building materials also serve to conserve carbon that has been previously spent by manufacturing these materials, including the extraction, transport, and fabrication of the items. The Green Project helps restore the architectural heritage of the city by keeping materials from architecturally prized buildings in circulation. These pieces are irreplaceable because of the old-growth wood they were made from many years before, and are made available to the public (The Best of New Orleans. “Free Building Supplies at the Green Project This Week”. http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2011/06/06/free-building-supplies-at-the-green-project-this-week).
The Green Project is also creating their own culture of creative reuse to fully reach the community. In order to change the way we dispose of things, it is necessary to shift the way in which we think and act. The Green Project demonstrates that materials have a much longer life than what we initially believe by making reused materials available to the community, and in turn the communities save money by repurposing these materials. “By educating people about their daily choices and the impacts those choices have on the world, The Green Project hopes to someday inspire a world where reuse centers and repurposed materials are the rule rather than the exception” (E-mail with Kaiti Tasker, Environmental Education Coordinator at the Green Project). After Katrina, the Green Project focused on deconstructing devastated homes and salvaging the materials for reuse. They deconstruct the homes by hand in order to ensure the highest amount of reusable materials. The community came together to volunteer their time, money, and supplies in order to rebuild New Orleans along with the Green Project (Tree Hugger. “The Green Project New Orleans Salvaging Building Materials”. http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/the-green-project-new-orleans-salvaging-building-materials.html).
1. New Orleans Earth Day Festival and Green Business Expo
2. Gulf Restoration Network
3. The Nature Conservancy
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