A Parley Partnership
Written by: Robin Brooks
Back in 2016, just as DSNY was building a long-term strategy to send zero waste to landfills, a handful of colleagues imagined bold and creative new ways to excite people about environmentalism. We wanted to work with green-minded businesses and draw enthusiastic New Yorkers to events – while celebrating our often-overlooked essential workers. The best strategy? Create a new non-profit. While grappling with how to launch our fledgling foundation, up-and-coming designer Heron Preston made an unusual pitch to us: create a fashion line by upcycling decommissioned Sanitation uniforms. Our partnership was born.
News coverage of our collaboration drew billions of clicks. We were onto something.
We followed that first concept with creative projects to reduce food waste, keep clothing from reaching landfills, showcase our employees’ talents, and now the culmination of a two-year partnership with Parley for the Oceans and Parsons School of Design.
As the New York State ban on single-use plastic bags was approaching, Sanitation Foundation partnered with Parley to create robust neighborhood events in all five boroughs. Hundreds of New Yorkers volunteered their time to collect litter from shorelines and neighboring park areas. We separated the recyclables. Much of that plastic debris was cleaned, processed and transformed into premium upcycled plastic material to create a special edition of Parley Ocean Bags.
Now, in Phase 2 of this project, young New York City artists from Parsons are joining us. First year art and design students in the Sustainable Systems Course are competing to design one of three Parley Ocean Bags. Three students will be chosen as winners and will have their designs printed on a run of the Parley Ocean Bags and distributed through exclusive retailers in New York City. The collaboration will support the city’s plastic bag ban and spotlight the issue of marine plastic pollution in urban environments.
Sometimes in life, things seem to come full-circle. To choose the winning designs, we’ve created a panel of experts, and they represent our Foundation’s early and enduring goals:
Cyrill Gutsch is CEO and founder of Parley – a company committed to removing plastic from oceans across the globe;
Parsons Associate Dean Lucille Tenazas is leading the next generation to sustainability;
Sanitation Supervisor Brendan Harkin is a 15-year veteran of DSNY and is sharing his talent as a painter for this project; and
Heron Preston, who continues to be an advocate for our Department and is a member of the Sanitation Foundation’s Advisory Board.
As a born and (partially) raised New Yorker, this project is particularly meaningful to me. These recycled and reusable bags are a fundraiser for our no-longer fledgling foundation. They replace single-use bags that damage our environment, made with some of the very material New Yorkers helped us clear to beautify our city! This collaboration is a powerful reminder of the troubling reality that litter in our streets trashes our waterways and threatens our wildlife – and that when we work together we can make our world better.
Read the full press release, then Join our mailing list to find out who will win and to learn which exclusive retailers in New York City will be selling these bags later this year.