Keynote • Baltimore’s Path to Zero Waste

October 26, 2023 from 8:15 am to 8:45 am

Speaker: Speaker: Shashawnda Campbell

Times are listed in Pacific Standard Time

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.