Eureka Recycling, a homegrown, progressive recycling nonprofit based in Northeast Minneapolis, is upping its “zero waste” game. The company is sponsoring MSP’s first-ever
Zero Waste Summit on September 18 from 12:30 pm to 6:30 pm.
Brave New Workshop, an all-purpose venue and gathering space in downtown Minneapolis, is hosting the event. General admission tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students. Scholarship tickets, which include the cost of admission, two drink tickets and an admission scholarship for another attendee, are $100. Anyone who arrives by public or active transportation (bus, LRT, bike or foot) earns free admission to a future Brave New Workshop event of their choice.
“We want attendees to get information and thoughts from the people who really live the vision of zero waste,” says Lynn Hoffman, Eureka Recycling’s chief of community engagement and principal event organizer. “Equally important will be the time to connect and collaborate so we can take action while inspiration is still fresh in our hearts and minds.”
To that end, Eureka’s first-ever Zero Waste Summit features nearly 20 speakers, many of whom have close ties to MSP’s sustainability movement.
Amanda LaGrange works as marketing director for
Tech Dump St. Paul, an innovative electronics recycling outfit that offers free, eco-friendly disposal services (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year) and provides living-wage jobs for economically disadvantaged adults.
Eartha Bell is director for the soon-to-be-operational Frogtown Farm, an ambitious project that promises to be Minnesota’s largest
urban farm (and one of the country’s biggest, as well).
Tracy Sides is director of
Urban Oasis, a “sustainable food center” that offers healthy cooking education, small business training, catering with seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, and other sorely needed food services on St. Paul’s East Side.
These speakers and their organizations, and all the others represented at the Zero Waste Summit, live and breathe Eureka’s commitment to low-impact communities.
“Eureka Recycling is the only organization in Minnesota that specializes in zero waste,” says Christine Weeks, co-principal at
Field Guide, a St. Paul-based boutique communications firm that caters to progressive clients. “The organization's services, programs and policy work present solutions to the social, environmental and health problems caused by wasting.”
“Zero waste is more than an empty garbage can,” adds Hoffman. “The way we consume accounts for almost half of the CO2 that threatens [our] healthy food, abundant resources, clean air and water, safe and reliable products, and healthy families and communities.”