Feed People, Not Landfills

For over two years Rust Belt Riders has offered our organic waste hauling services to Northeast Ohio. We do this work because roughly 40% of all the food grown in the United States is thrown away at a time when 1 in 5 children in Northeast Ohio is food insecure.  Over the course of the two years we have operated, we have learned a lot about how to manage and mitigate food waste. We want to take our lessons on the road to Cleveland neighborhoods where we can further develop and deploy neighborhood-specific tools to help residents and businesses better manage their food waste in their home, at work, and in their community. To do that, we need your help!

Our work is aiming to support the ongoing community gardening and urban farming efforts that are afoot. We hope to create a conversation about food waste and answer questions that youth and elders alike may have about how they can improve their environment. 

We will achieve this by working with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and their Climate Ambassadors as well as RSELVES' ICAN 2 Lab to bring a mobile classroom to neighborhoods across Cleveland that will serve as resource to learn about food waste and the issues that intersect with it: climate change, stormwater management, environmental racism, food access and community building. 

Rust Belt Riders will be working with a wide variety of community stakeholders to deploy a mobile classroom and resource center that will have residencies in four Cleveland neighborhoods: Central-Kinsman, Detroit Shoreway, Glenville, and Slavic Village. By building on the work already under way in partnership with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and their Climate Ambassadors we will retrofit and modify the ICAN 2 Lab, designed by RSELVES to serve as a gathering point for community action around climate change and adaptation. We will focus on the environmental issues that exist as a result of rampant food waste. 

To achieve this we are working with RSELVES to make use of their ICAN 2 Lab, a renovated shipping container, equipped with amenities such as wi­fi, computer tablets, creative tools, workbench type tables, and an open environment designed to promote creativity and versatility. This lab will serve as a gathering point for dialogue, problem-solving, and workshops on topics related to environmental justice generally and food waste in particular. 

We will leverage the already ongoing efforts of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and their Climate Ambassadors who are leading community outreach and engagement efforts on topics of climate adaptation. The ICAN 2 Lab will serve to bolster their efforts while also providing site-specific educational opportunities. 

Here is what needs to be done before we can get started:

• Modify, repair and retrofit the ICAN 2 Lab to address issues related to climate change, environmental justice, and food waste.
• Develop educational material and workshops that will assist in programming the ICAN 2 Lab during its community residencies. 
• Find locations where the ICAN 2 Lab can reside based on asset mapping, community feedback, and stakeholder engagement. 
• Secure any necessary permitting. 

Timeline:

• December - February: Repair and retrofit the interior/ exterior of the ICAN 2 Lab to be used by the public. 
• February - March:  Site preparation for the ICAN 2 Lab to be deployed in four Cleveland communities. 
• April: Produce materials that will assist in self-guided, classroom, and hands-on education. 
• May: Deploy ICAN 2 Lab for first neighborhood residency
• June: Deploy ICAN 2 Lab for second neighborhood residency
• July: Deploy ICAN 2 Lab for third neighborhood residency
• August: Deploy ICAN 2 Lab for fourth neighborhood residency
• September- November: Deploy ICAN 2 Lab to quasi-permanent home for ongoing education, outreach, and engagement. 

Rust Belt Riders is doing this work because at our core we view ourselves as a community-based organization that happens to run a business. While we have always been committed to improving our business we view community engagement, outreach, and mobilization as an equally critical endeavor. Our work has taught us a great deal about the impact food waste has on a variety of issues; food access, environmental racism, water quality, and community building. We want to share the lessons we have learned with our community and start a dialogue across the city that will bring about action to make greater inroads to ending food waste in Cleveland. We believe that the tools and resources needed to end food waste in Cleveland are already present and that this effort might help to galvanize additional support to bring about a more systematic approach to combating food waste. Food waste touches us all and intersects with each of us in different ways. Food is our common bond so whether you are a home cook, student, policy-wonk, community gardener, or city councilperson we all need to work together to ensure we are feeding people, not landfills.