The question in the Pennsylvania Resources Council news release intrigued me: “Ready for a lesson in ‘stuff’?”
My answer? Oh, yes, as I sat in my stuff-filled home office. I pride myself on my recycling and donation regimen and knowledge. But really? I needed motivation to do more and clear this room and more in my house.
This new PRC and Allegheny CleanWays education program Eco Scouts had my name on it.
With one session remaining Tuesday, I have learned so much, thanks to the two engaging and expert young women who lead the interactive sessions and my classmates in the McKeesport cohort.
PRC western office’s environmental education coordinator Laura Blood and Allegheny CleanWays education coordinator and DumpBusters crew leader Lauren Pearman worked together since January to plan it. Their commitment to environmental work has come through every fun and engaging 90-minute session.
A $50,000 Hillman Foundation grant won by both groups last year funded the six-session course that started in May at two locations: McKeesport and Homewood. We’ve taken a deep dive into learning about repair and reuse, recycling, composting and food waste, litter cleanups, waste and watersheds. We’ve gained insight into connecting with our respective communities to either join in or lead activities with the goal of becoming change-makers.
Allegheny CleanWays has partnered with PRC on projects before, but this is the first education project for it, Pearman said. They didn’t need to do a ton of research on the subject matter, as both groups already teach and talk about it in all their efforts, she explained. But creating something from scratch involved figuring out the structure and more.
Blood said they found some similar programs, including NYC Trash Academy, Allegheny Land Trust’s education programs and the Recycling Ambassadors with Ohio University/Appalachia Ohio Zero Waste Initiative, to review as they did.
The grant enabled Eco Scouts to be offered free to participants, and Blood and Pearman wrestled with charging a nominal fee regardless. Ultimately, they decided not to do so. (Fun fact: The first name chosen for the program was Trash Scouts. “Then we thought people wouldn’t like that,” Pearman said.)
They did target the two neighborhoods because they are environmental justice areas, Blood said. Plus Allegheny CleanWays had relationships with both places. Perlman said her nonprofit still comes to McKeesport weekly for dump cleanups although it is not as active on that front in Homewood now.
“It was important to us to make connections to people from those neighborhoods to highlight the great work that is happening there,” she added. “Both have a lot of challenges facing them, and people do not know about all the wonderful things going on there.”
They set 25 attendees as preregistration goals for both places and reached that, although Blood said there has been more regular attendance in Homewood than McKeesport. Pearman believes the Homewood location is just more central for Pittsburgh residents.
Participants did not need to attend all six, and registration remained open as the course progressed. I felt guilty when a scheduling conflict meant I had to miss the deep dive into recycling.
Fear not, though. I still got the goods because after each session the leaders follow up with links to their PowerPoint files, resource lists, how-to videos, and information the time limit cannot accommodate. Community experts speak each time, and we receive more information about their work, too.
Blood and Pearman split the teaching for the sessions, leaning into their past experiences, with Blood lauding her colleague. “Lauren stands on her own. She is pretty magnificent,” she said. “She is so incredible at coming up with really cool activities. She has a lot of experience teaching in schools. She also has a background in dance and teaches that, too. We are very good at bouncing ideas off each other.”
As far as participating in scouts themselves as youngsters, Blood signed up for Brownies but lasted just two sessions. Pearman made it until middle school, then quit despite her mother sticking it out in Girl Scouts to the gold level. “I wanted to go camping and catch bugs and dig in the dirt,” Perlman said. “Other people wanted to do crafts, and that wasn’t for me.”
Both have extensive experience: Blood, who lives in Daughterty in Beaver County, has worked for both the Moon and Westmoreland County municipal authorities, overseeing waste and water management; before that she worked in various capacities for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and has taught biology part time at the Community College of Beaver County, too. Perlman, who grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee, lives in Pittsburgh and loves its hills except for the long hill to her organization’s office in Etna when she rides her bike there.
I have not felt overwhelmed at all, keeping in mind their deep backgrounds. I left always wanting to know more.
Much of that connects to the leaders giving us peeks into their personal lives, and they don’t preach at all. (And we always have healthy snacks, too, complete with cloth napkins to stick to best practices. Recipes have been exchanged.)
For example, Blood drives an electric car and loves thrifting. She drove miles in that car to secure buckets for our Bokashi compost kits, power washing them four times to rid them of what had been packed into them. “There may still be some frosting in these,” she advised us. “You might have to clean that out with a toothbrush.”
The real lesson? Saving those plastic buckets from going to the landfill. And she was honest: “I’m not sure I’d do that again.” I loved that.
Pearman told us she owns five shirts, enough for her needs. She told me later she counted again and realized they numbered six: Two of them she bought at thrift shops, two she sewed for herself and the last two she bought with a gift card.
It’s important to connect this fact with a session that explained what can be recycled easily and what is difficult. Clothing fits that latter category. Even if we purge our closets and donate to charities religiously, fast fashion and online purchase free shipping offers have meant more fabric and clothes still overwhelmingly end up in landfills.
We learned about differences in natural and man-made fibers as part of that, plus repairability guides for products such as smartphones, ear buds, laptops and e-readers and more. I am sure I could bore you as you read about all of that, so I will just stop.
My generation learned about recycling in depth from our children. For example, my then third grade daughter Amy taught me – after chiding me for running water wastefully while brushing my teeth – the importance to reduce, reuse and recycle from one of her lessons. Today to ensure significant change, it has become prevent, reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and then dispose.
Dispelling myths factored into the sessions.
“People tend to have pretty common things they believe about what happens behind the scenes about recycling and things like that,” Blood said. “If people just understand a little bit more about what goes on beyond the scenes, they can move forward more on whatever sustainability topic they are interested in.”
A good example: how plastic recycling is sorted and collected curbside. Some communities only recycle “1” or “2” plastics. Others give their residents a shape instead, she said. It depends on the waste collection companies local governments contract with each year. The scope then depends on their trucks and machinery.
I rejoiced when Jefferson Hills where I live added glass back into recycling. I have written 12 Pittsburgh Union Progress stories about PRC partnering with local governments to recycle glass with collection bins. Glass is that forever recyclable material, I have learned.
But here is my reality check: Taking it to one of those bins or other collection points is more effective, up to 98%. Leaving it curbside with other recyclable materials for single-stream removal pales in comparison: just 40%.
We have earned cool badges, designed by Mary Tremonte, a local artist who runs Mary Mack Prints. And in addition to those composting kits, we have been given a litter grabber (I have always wanted my own!) plus gloves and a collection bucket, and a sewing kit (something I have not attempted yet but promise to do so, cross my heart). All relate to materials covered in a session. We’ve been promised a special bandanna, too, at our last session.
The leaders always allotted time for attendees sharing their stories. Several people in my group are minimalists. One writes her own blog about it.
“We wanted there to be an emotional piece,” Blood said. “We wanted to have enough time for people to have a discussion with each other. We wanted to provide some sort of data and information. We wanted to have a hands-on component. The big piece: connections with the communities, [and to do that] bring in community partners.”
Those selected guest speakers have been impressive. Marcie Morales explained the timeline and ongoing efforts of McKeesport’s community garden that she has been a part of since 2017. She came to all the sessions. Courtney Thomkins created the foundation Qcares after her daughter died in a pedestrian accident. She has not only worked on pedestrian safety but also organized the cleanup of a McKeesport vacant lot. Anna Dzuricky told us about how she transitioned from work as an engineer to launch a textile repair and refurb home business.
We’ll finish with Sarah Kocac and Duane Goodsell of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County on waste and watersheds. Homewood participants learned from Sam Gibson of We the People 412, Ash Chan of Oasis Farm, Rebecca Harrison of Old Flame Mending. In their last session they will hear from Beth Dutton and Holly Bomba from Pittsburgh Water.
The Homewood group managed to get out for a litter cleanup. Hot, muggy weather stopped ours the night it was scheduled. Both groups received the Eco Scouts guide to organizing a litter cleanup and links to existing efforts.
We complete surveys after each session, and the leaders have used that information to adjust and prepare the next one. So far, it’s all been positive and enlightening, Blood said.
For example: “The presenters were welcoming, knowledgeable and fun. It felt like a very inclusive and safe space with people who care about similar issues as myself. I am very excited for what’s to come!”
“I loved the talk from Sam! It was so great to hear from a member of the Black community, especially in a group that is entirely white. I would have never learned about his work and their mission and impact on the community if not for this session/series. I hope I can be involved with volunteering with them in the future!”
Blood and Pearman would love to offer Eco Scouts again after this pilot and are actively looking for funding to do so.
Pearman, the first Allegheny CleanWays full-time employee dedicated to education, said if it is repeated, they have some choices. One option: repeating it and tweaking the content, keeping it in the same locations. Another: choosing totally different settings and running it again with some slight changes, including some volunteer opportunities.
I hope they do. And I hope those of you who have been reading this all the way to the end join in, even if it includes – and it should; these are nonprofits! – a fee.
One last story from Pearman: She and her partner strive for net zero waste. That means weighing their trash weekly, which averages 8 pounds. (They do have a cat and believe most of those pounds can be attributed to litter.) They also have fun with Dumpster diving, mainly when college students move out. In a good weekend they can collect 400 pounds of trash. They give some away as donations, some to friends, fix some and use it or give it away. And Pearman collects it all on her electric cargo bike, not with a car.
Like many of us, Pearman had anxiety over recycling and accumulating too much stuff. She said, “I have been able to take that anxiety and flip it into this thing I find really fun into an exciting scavenger hunt.”
And it leads to a deeper lesson: “It has been very freeing for me. I sew a lot of my own clothes because I enjoy it. I make most of my food from scratch because I find it really fun.”
I’ll never match this or even come close. I’m in awe of both of them, happy to write about their good work. And the composting at my house will start in earnest, soon. Scout’s honor.
Learn more about the Eco Scouts program here: https://prc.org/blog/become-an-eco-scout-and-learn-to-tackle-stuff/
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.