Clean Bushwick Initiative: A Community Effort

By SEAN HANNIGAN

Kristen Tadrous, a Bushwick native,  dons a tight-fitting red mask before leaving her apartment. She walks nine blocks to Irving Square Park in Brooklyn,  where she meets with dozens of other environmental activists as they parcel out brooms, rakes, and mechanical trash grabbers near one of the park entrances. Tadrous and other members of the Clean Bushwick Initiative meet almost every day to tackle large scale cleanups.

Tadrous is co-director of the Clean Bushwick Initiative, which Tadrous describes as “an organization focused on raising environmental awareness around sanitation issues in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We operate by doing community cleanups, tree care, rain garden maintenance, and advocacy events.”

The Clean Bushwick Initiative has organized over 50 organized cleanups, has amassed more than 500 volunteers, and have collected over 15,000 gallons of garbage in the local Bushwick area alone. This initiative began in 2016, when leading members noticed that local politicians were not addressing the issue plaguing Bushwick: trash.

“Bushwick is a working class neighborhood that has one of the highest concentrations of litter in all of NYC. It’s also a predominantly Latinx community with a myriad of health problems, like asthma, resulting from poor air quality and a rat population,” Tadrous says.

Tadrous has been a part of the Clean Bushwick Initiative since 2018. “I wanted to combine my love for community work with my strong dislike for the unaddressed litter problem in the neighborhood.” said Kristen, a Bushwick community member that was ready and willing to make positive change.

“[We were] armed with a box of rubber gloves, a few trash grabbers and some garbage bags, I headed to the meeting spot wondering if anyone would show up. Fast forward to today, we now have a thriving community of volunteerism,” Tadrous says.

Keeping such a densely populated part of New York City clean is no small task. Bushwick, located in what part of Brooklyn, is home to over 120,000 residents that reside within 2.4 square miles.

Per the Furman Center, with 4.2% of the population identified as Asian, 16.4% identified as black, 53.1% identified as Hispanic, and 22.4% identified as white. The median household income in 2018 was $54,240, about 16% less than citywide median household income ($64,850). The poverty rate in Bushwick was 24.0% in 2018 compared to 17.3% citywide.

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Tadrous along with other volunteers have felt a positive response from all community members as Bushwick continues growing and changing, “Our momentum from the past year has inspired many to get involved. City officials, businesses, and other community organizations have been more inclined to work with us than ever before. We recently held an Earth Day event which featured talks from all types of community organizations and environmental activist groups. The event even featured two mayoral candidates, including Andrew Yang” says Tadrous.

The Bushwick Team

Cleaning up such a crowded area is a daily job, so founders like Back have always kept a community-based, fun atmosphere to cleaning. “My favorite project involved doing tree care and bulb planting events. It’s always fun to have opportunities to immerse yourself in nature while in the city. We are also working on creating a campaign to engage with business owners on keeping their storefronts clean. This project will involve working with small businesses (many of which are Latinx or minority-owned) on cleaning their storefronts and tree beds, which unfortunately are very run with litter,” says Tadrous.

“Our goal moving forward is to continue creating a safe, clean environment in our community and making volunteerism fun!” Back says.

And it indeed has been fun for so many of the Clean Bushwick Initiative volunteers, the positive atmosphere was palpable when seeing their Earth Day cleanup firsthand. “What I love about CBI is seeing the different faces come to our events and take some time out of their days (usually weekends) to do something positive for the community.” says Tadrous.

Sarah Back mentions what this initiative is truly about: community.

Isabel Lahn-Schroeder, a member of the initiative recorded a video for the Instagram page “Clean_Bushwick_Initiative.”   In the video she poses a challenge to followers on Instagram, saying “when you walk home from work today, grab a bag and collect recycling and garbage on your way home.” Its this community based effort that keeps this initiative active and efficient.

This kind of collective consciousness towards local cleanups has become a well-oiled machine in Bushwick, as many volunteers see it as cleaning up their home.

This community-based clean up effort, coupled with savvy informative social media, continues to grow.

Jeremy Cohen, media strategist at Canvas Worldwide, is proud about the activism in his home of Bushwick,

“It feels great to give back to the community, all while making some new friends and making the neighborhood breathe better and look prettier,” Cohen says.

This initiative has not seemed like a job to any member interviewed, instead each member spoke about how fun it is to do together, and how doing it together while enjoying nature makes the day easier.

I got a chance to speak with Kristen about how Covid-19 has impacted their cleaning efforts if at all, “overall, the pandemic has been a gamechanger for our organization. People are more involved in our events than ever before, which one might argue is due to having more available time to volunteer. Due to the sanitation budget cuts, there’s more trash on the streets and more of a reason to organize cleanups and advocacy events. In addition, people in general have been inspired to make a positive change in their environment as a result of the last year, leading many cleanup groups to form,” Tadrous says.

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Movements Helping Movements

The goal of keeping Bushwick clean has not slowed down. All members wear masks while cleaning and stay as distanced as possible in such a crowded city.  With so many New Yorkers now becoming vaccinated, the streets are becoming more populated as workplaces and restaurants open to limited capacity.

Per Grow NYC, an organization trying to improve New York City’s quality of life through environmental programs , states New York City residents produce about 12,000 tons of waste every day. NYC residents currently only recycle about 17% of their total waste, half of what they are capable of recycling with current programs. Groups like Grow NYC and Clean Bushwick Initiative have similar goals, and part of those goals are education based.

CBI focuses a good deal of time on using social media to inform and educate local residents. Their Instagram page regularly shares resources, information on zero waste living, and other important statistics. Their Instagram page and social media use is one of the keys to this initiative’s success. Their most recent video posted on their page features a compilation of cleaning efforts, bags being filled with cigarette butts, events with speakers such as Andrew Yang, entrepreneur and politician, and others. This video amassed thousand views in just a day.

When this community got tired of seeing trash on the streets, they came together and took action. Led by focused and driven leaders like Tadrous, Bushwick is only going to get cleaner with the help of a community that cares.