A Journey Just Begun!🌿
Our Trash Free Maryland journey started with the visionary Julie Lawson, our founder, who turned her passion into action; creating the organization, raising the money to start it, and securing early wins.
The advantages of an organization dedicated solely to trash and litter policy quickly became clear.
Ashley Van Stone, our next Executive Director, strengthened the organization, recruiting a cadre of talented and energetic Board Members and cultivating relationships with stakeholders across the State, all while navigating the successful push to ban polystyrene packaging in 2020.
During the Pandemic, former Delegate, Shane Robinson staffed the organization, implementing strategic communications tools and laid the groundwork for extended producer responsibility, a critical step towards our vision.
More recently, I've had the privilege to staff the organization along with some of the most talented interns I have worked with over my career. We owe the caliber of interns to Board Member Ali Solonche who, among many other things, recruits interns professionally.
This year marked significant progress for our Trash Free Maryland Coalition. Advocating for a systematic waste reduction policy, we passed the beginning process for extended producer responsibility. With more legislative action and implementation to come.
Short-term actions, like advocating for local bans on single-use plastics, like plastic grocery style bags, yield immediate results and foster immense public awareness to the issues of trash and litter.
None of this is possible without the formidable Coalition of individuals, local watershed organizations, statewide environmental advocates, businesses and Maryland affiliates of national environmental groups. We are in constant communication; strategizing, sharing ideas, supporting each other, and learning from one another.
Your support, whether through passion, volunteering, donations, or expertise, is instrumental in realizing the vision of a Maryland free of trash and litter.
Our strength is in our collective effort.
As a lean organization with a dedicated team, our journey has just begun.
Challenges lie ahead: the projected tripling of plastic production, worker shortages in DPW agencies, and the micro-plastics found in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, human health issues we are just beginning to study.
We are confident with your support we can secure a future free of trash, a Trash Free Maryland!
This Giving Tuesday, will be a pivotal point in changing plastic pollution culture, all proceeds of our campaign will go directly to education, implementation, and execution of Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging, which will lead to smarter design choices for producers, better handling of end life of products, and improved recycling systems.
