Quantifying Reuse in New York City: The Reuse Impact Calculator. Lorena Fortuna, PhD Data Management and Research Project Manager

Transcription

1 Quantifying Reuse in New York City: The Reuse Impact Calculator Lorena Fortuna, PhD Data Management and Research Project Manager

2 GUIDING MANDATE: ONENYC Vision 3: Sustainability Goal 2: Zero Waste to Landfills by 2030 Initiative 6: Expand local reuse opportunities Continue to grow and develop the City s nonprofit reuse sector, connecting potential donors with organizations that reuse or resell material to support the arts, public health, and other causes.

3 CONTEXT: Supporting Reuse in NYC To reduce needless waste and increase diversion of reusable material from landfills, NYC Department of Sanitation established donatenyc & NYC Center for Materials Reuse Part of DSNY s 0x30 solid waste plan

4 donatenyc: Goals Leverage local reuse infrastructure to increase diversion Research local models and develop technical resources to support the management of unwanted reusable items Collect verifiable data [GHG emissions, energy reduction, tonnage] for Zero Waste impact assessment Support growth and development of local nonprofits, CBOs, and faith-based organizations that use unwanted goods to fuel social services and workforce development Provide donation coordination support for disaster response

5 DONATENYC: Reuse Directory donatenyc incorporates a comprehensive database of local reuse outlets. NYC residents can search online or with a convenient app, by item category, vendor location, and more to find: the nearest place that accepts donations of gently used clothing, household items, furniture, and more thrift stores, vintage shops, and other outlets that sell second-hand goods vendors that buy used items Search results include detailed information about vendors such as hours, location & map, and contact info.

6 DONATENYC: Reuse Directory Searchable directory of donation locations WEBSITE: nyc.gov/donate

7 DONATENYC: Donations Exchange The donatenyc Exchange facilitates easy exchanges of usable second-hand or surplus goods between businesses and non-profit organizations. The organizations get free usable goods, and the businesses cut their waste, save on storage and disposal, and may benefit from tax deductions for their donations.

8 DONATENYC: Donations Exchange Virtual materials exchange for businesses + nonprofits WEBSITE: nyc.gov/donate

9 Other DSNY-Sponsored Initiatives: re-fashionyc Every year NYC residents throw out approximately 200,000 tons of clothing, blankets, shoes, handbags, and other textiles and apparel. re-fashionyc is a partnership between the NYC Department of Sanitation and donatenyc Partner Housing Works to make clothing donation easy, through convenient in-building service. DSNY provides donations bins for buildings. Clothing and accessories donated through re-fashionyc are sorted at the Housing Works warehouse in Queens. All proceeds from donations support the charitable mission of Housing Works to end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS. No donated material is sent to landfills.

10 THE NEW YORK CENTER FOR MATERIALS REUSE Established in 2007 at CUNY Fully funded program by NYC Department of Sanitation Part of the Bureau of Recycling and Sustainability s donatenyc program

11 THE NEW YORK CENTER FOR MATERIALS REUSE donatenyc Partnership nyc.gov/donate/partnership Data Management and Research nyc.gov/donate/impact

12 DONATENYC PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM Serves as a nonprofit reuse trade association that supports the local nonprofit reuse organizations Partners are nonprofit materials exchanges and reuse organizations that collect and redistribute second-hand and surplus goods within New York City Benefits include: networking and professional training opportunities; technical support services [data management]

13 DONATENYC PARTNERSHIPS

14 DATA MANAGEMENT & RESEARCH: Background 2009 Nonprofit reuse sector focus group Establishment of sector challenges + resource gaps Determined data management as central CMR as ideal conduit for data processing

15 DATA MANAGEMENT & RESEARCH: Goals Development of methodologies to quantify the waste diversion and zero waste contribution of materials reuse in NYC Provide environmental impact statistics to partner reuse organizations for promotional purposes [marketing, fund-raising]

16 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Background Challenges of quantifying reuse: Diversity of products Fragmented data from reuse organizations Unknown material composition of products required to estimate environmental impact

17 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Methodology Adoption of an universal list of products Global Product Classification to standardize data from organizations Development of standard tables for weight and material composition of reused products Field characterization study in reuse organizations

18 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Description Web based platform Uses quantitative and qualitative information [input] Volume/Weight/Quantity + Product Description Automatically classifies products in standardized categories Perform calculations of [output]: Product and material weight CO 2 emissions and energy reduction Use emission factors from EPA Waste Reduction Model (WARM) to estimate impact

19 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Quantifying Reuse

20 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Benefits Integrated platform to manage data collected from donatenyc partners Standardize data processing and impact calculations Automate calculation of impact data [GHG emissions, energy reduction, tonnage] Facilitate generation of reports and dissemination of information

21 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Estimates Last year donatenyc partners diverted more than 40 million pounds of materials from the waste stream.

22 REUSE IMPACT CALCULATOR [RIC]: Environmental Impact Materials diversion by partner organizations last year amounted to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 62,936 metric tons of CO2 equivalents, and energy savings of 328 billion BTU.

23 Lorena Fortuna, PhD Project Manager NYC Center for Materials Reuse nyc.gov/donate

24 RIC Webinar November 11am RSVP: