National Zero Waste Conference - Keynote Showcase 2023

All activities are on the Main Stage – except Concurrent Sessions.
Click session titles to access their descriptions.

Jennie R. Romer

Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pollution Prevention, U.S. EPA
Strengthening Zero Waste Efforts with EPA Programs and Resources

Jennie Romer is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pollution Prevention at EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). In this role, Jennie oversees OCSPP’s Pollution Prevention (P2) program, which includes the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing and Safer Choice programs, P2 Grants, and Green Chemistry awards. This includes leading OCSPP’s implementation of over $400 million in historic funding for P2 provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.

Prior to her appointment at EPA, Jennie was a legal associate at the Surfrider Foundation where she led the Plastic Pollution Initiative. She is the author of Can I Recycle This?: A Guide to Better Recycling and How to Reduce Single-Use Plastics and has more than a decade of experience in plastic pollution prevention policy and recycling. Her legal background includes litigation regarding sustainability claims, product labeling, toxics, and free speech. An attorney by training, she is a member of the state bars of both California and New York and earned her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law. She also holds bachelor’s degrees in zoology, environmental studies, and Black studies from University of California, Santa Barbara.

Shashawnda Campbell

Environmental Justice Coordinator, South Baltimore Community Land Trust
Baltimore’s Path to Zero Waste

Shashawnda Campbell is a community leader and activist for Environmental Justice. As a student at Ben Franklin High School in South Baltimore, she co-founded Free Your Voice, a student-led group that worked for 5 years to shut down the largest incinerator proposal in US history, set to be built less than a mile away from their school.

Shashawnda has since helped develop the South Baltimore Community Land Trust to create community-led development without displacement, permanently affordable housing, and zero waste infrastructure.

A lifelong Baltimore resident, Shashawnda is committed to the implementation of Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste to help lead her City through a just transition to zero waste that respects our lives and our planet.

The South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT) is a group of Baltimore organizers serving and uplifting the communities of South, Central, and West Baltimore. SBCLT’s mission is to transform Baltimore City’s racist and inequitable waste and housing systems into ones that are just and regenerative. SBCLT works to change neighborhoods from dumping grounds surrounded by polluting industries, to healthy zero waste communities. SBCLT also works to decrease the racial wealth gap and protect our neighborhoods from gentrification, by reclaiming vacant and abandoned properties and creating affordable home ownership opportunities for low-income and working class residents.

Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste, created through a collaboration between Baltimore City grassroots community leaders, Zero Waste Associates and Baltimore City Officials was launched in February 2020 and adopted by Baltimore City Council in March 2020. The plan provides a practical roadmap, centered on equity, for a just transition away from trash incineration to community economic development without displacement through Zero Waste infrastructure and investment.

Shashawnda will provide an update on the latest Zero Waste initiatives, including SBCLT’s work with major institutions in Baltimore to recover food scraps and to support the development of a City-owned compost facility on a site in South Baltimore.