The Role Of Reuse In A Just Transition: Workforce & Economic Development
Welcome to Upstream’s series examining—through storytelling, case studies, and interviews—the principles of a Just Transition and how reuse is in conversation with every element.
One primary principle of a Just Transition is that it creates governance structures and economies that allow for self determination, robust local communities and social safety nets, and ecological responsibility. It also supplies everyone an equal right to what they need to thrive (not just survive), including safe, healthy, dignified jobs, housing, education, food, air and ecosystems—from within their own communities/on their tribal lands. In this installation of the series, we are looking at how reuse can meet the objectives of a just economy as well as provide safe, healthy, dignified jobs.
Background
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that waste and recycling collection was the fourth deadliest occupation in 2023. Clean, safe reuse jobs have an 84% reduction in industry toxicity score, and the reuse industry can create up to 30 times more jobs than landfills. Furthermore, single-use disposables add costs to businesses to procure products and pay for waste hauling—again and again. They also add costs to city governments to manage the packaging waste, which is on average 28% of a municipal waste stream. That equates to $5 billion nationally to manage what lands in the trash. Another $12 billion is spent picking up what ends up as litter. Reuse stops waste before it starts, cutting the number of single-use items that end up in the waste management system and reducing costs for businesses and local governments.
How do these statistics play out in the real world, and particularly in communities with limited means or among populations with fewer opportunities for employment? We spoke with two leaders interacting with the reuse economy from different angles to learn more.
Natasha Wayne, Operations Director, Reaching All Minds Academy
Reaching All Minds Academy in Durham, NC is a Title One K-8 charter school with a STEM curriculum focused on sustainability—a focus which school administrators chose because they see future job opportunities concentrated in sectors like clean energy and green building—and, they soon learned, in reuse systems as well. The school began by replacing their styrofoam lunch trays with compostables, but they quickly found this “solution” to be cost-prohibitive and a burden on janitorial staff due to the sheer volume of material they had to haul and fit into their composting receptacles. So they partnered with Don’t Waste Durham, a local reuse service provider that delivered, collected, washed and sanitized, and returned reusable lunch trays and utensils for them.
Natasha Wayne, Operations Director at Reaching All Minds, who was responsible for implementing the reuse program, says that though it required an up-front investment in the trays and utensils, “We found we were able to start saving money within the second year of reuse, because we weren't constantly putting out funds to purchase something that literally goes in the trash can. The project became less cumbersome to our finances than it would have been had we stayed with our single-use products within about 19 months of undergoing this change to reusables.” The reuse program also created more jobs at Don’t Waste Durham, as the organization brought on staff to help service the school. The cost savings and job creation spurred by this local reuse project in turn contributed to a more robust local community.
But the program provides more than reusable foodware to the students. It shows them the possibilities in a just economy, opportunities for self-determination, and gives them access to new job markets. As Natasha says:
We've had the Don't Waste Durham team and our compost team come in and talk to [our students] about what it is like to have a job in these sectors, which exposes them to opportunities that they don't see every day, because we work with a Title One population. About 93% of our students are qualified for free and reduced lunch programs. The careers that they see on a daily basis are very limited, and they're really not oriented toward environmentalism or sustainability. Giving them that foundation within the school is really important to us, and we've worked hard to help them understand that this is just the way you do things… The workforce development component really is not about what we're building in the workforce right now, but what we're going to be able to offer to the workforce in eight to 10 years, when our students are starting to apply for their first jobs in high school and after graduation.
With a burgeoning reuse industry and an ever increasing number of packaging reduction policies passing around the United States and Canada, the time is right to prime a student workforce for reuse jobs.
The reuse program also instills in the students the values of a just economy that is focused on community, social safety nets, and ecological responsibility. As Natasha says:
This program gives [the kids] an opportunity to take a sense of responsibility and ownership. “My tray” is not “my tray” every single day. My tray might be Matthew's tray tomorrow, or it might be your tray tomorrow. And because of that, I need to take pride in it, and I need to be mindful of the way I use it. That soft skill of being mindful of others and their needs as well as our shared resources is something that our kids are taking away consistently from this transition. If you have this soft skill and you have this understanding when you're young, then you're more prone to move toward a career that mirrors that desire to do good.
Matthew Luisier, National Sales Manager, r.World
r.World is a US-based reuse service provider with a primary focus on stadiums and festivals. Matthew Luisier began his career at r.World as a cup tech and worked his way up to becoming a National Sales Manager. He lives in Denver, CO, where one of r.World’s wash hubs is located. The most lucrative jobs in the area are in mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction — toxic, pollutive industries that are also inaccessible to the roughly 11% of the population that lives below the poverty line (data from datausa.io).
When r.World’s wash hub was built in Denver, Matthew Luisier says, “We then needed someone to manage the wash hub. Then we needed a cup tech to inspect. Then we needed the people to deliver and pick up. Then we needed people to sort everything so it could go through the wash station. So we went from essentially zero to up to 15 jobs overnight just by building a wash hub. When you do that, it's important, because then you can bring on people that want to learn about reuse.” These job opportunities and the concurrent learning about the reuse industry underscore the just economy values of self determination, robust local communities and social safety nets, and ecological responsibility.
r.World also has a tight partnership with Second Chance programs in some of the communities in which they work—which, Luisier says, “helps us provide for people who really want to do something good for the world. They want to get back on their feet, to have a stable, full-time position. We pride ourselves on creating an economy like that for the job market. Our philosophy is: Come work with us. We'll teach you new skills. We'll teach you about an incredible concept that is the new wave. And then we hope that these people will stick around, which most of them have, and they enjoy it, and now they're doing good for the planet.”
Luisier says r.World will offer anybody that comes in an opportunity with a fair wage, and they build their wash hubs in economic development zones:
We're trying to take a part of the city that may be neglected, and we want to help build something and then see the community build around it. We also try to build on major transportation lines, because we know somebody who might be coming from a Second Chance program might not have access to a car, and we will provide them with a bus pass. We will do what we can to provide for our staff. We hand them the (metaphorical) keys and teach them how to drive, but at some point, we're going to get out of the car and let them drive—but we want to give them the skill set to do that. Some of [those skills] also come from just having that steady job, like showing up for work on time, staying to the end of a shift, attending continued education and meetings. Then folks have a skill set to take if they choose to do something else in life, and that's our goal: to help create structure and stability, to make people know that they can do whatever they want to do, and get back out there on their feet.
Natasha and Matthew both point out that reuse systems only work if the whole community participates—and when they do, the whole community benefits and grows, not only economically but also socially by cooperatively stewarding these locally circulating resources. As reuse reaches a tipping point, we hope that the microeconomies created by schools like Reaching All Minds and reuse service providers such as r.World—those built upon Just Transition values—can propagate and scale.
