South Baltimore Community Land Trust’s (SBCLT) mission is to create community-led development without displacement and a just transition to Zero Waste in Baltimore.
South Baltimore serves as a dumping ground for the city and region – burning single use plastics and other mixed waste at a 35 year old trash incinerator located in frontline environmental justice (EJ) communities. However, Baltimore is poised for a dramatic turn with new city leadership committed to cutting ties with the aging incinerator and ushering in new Zero Waste infrastructure and policies all centered around equity.
With Plastic Solutions Fund support, SBCLT (in collaboration with GAIA, Baltimore Compost Collective, Benjamin Franklin High School, Towson University, and Institute for Local Self Reliance) aims to build a community- and labor-led Zero Waste Coalition in Baltimore capable of steering a just transition and breaking Baltimore’s trash addiction. They aim to do this by ensuring the execution of the Baltimore Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste.
SBCLT was founded by youth and community leaders, including Shashawnda Campbell and 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Destiny Watford, who inspired residents in her neighborhood to defeat plans to build the nation’s largest incinerator less than a mile away from her high school in 2016.
