Please Welcome our New Member to the Association of Oregon Recyclers!

What is your name?
Taylor Cass Talbott

Where do you work and what do you do? 
I recently returned home to Portland after seven years of Asia-based waste work. After finishing my Master’s in Tokyo, I spent four years designing waste reduction systems and awareness campaigns in Bhutan, then spent two years helping India’s SWaCH Waste Picker Cooperative develop a campaign to implement national sanitary waste segregation policy. I am now looking into how informal sector waste organizing in South Asia can inform similar work in the United States.

Tell us how you enbrace recycling/sustainability into your home or workplace?
I try to integrate zero waste ethics into everything I do- from sustainable consumption, to materials management, to efficient program design. I’m interested in programs and interventions that tackle multiple social issues at once (such as municipal sanitation programs that also help alleviate poverty), which is very much a zero waste approach.

What motivates you to recycle and live sustainably?
When one factors in resource consumption, it’s hard to live today without leaving a net negative mark on the world. Sustainable living is, for me, about trying to have a positive overall impact in our world.

Recycling is different, though. While I do recycle, I’m not convinced that recycling is sustainable. I do, however, see recycling as a valuable income source for some of the world’s most marginalized people. Ultimately I would like to see recycling shift toward more sophisticated, and socially-inclusive, reuse systems.

If you were an animal, which one would you be and why?
Some sort of migratory, flying animal….because I love to travel and see the world from different perspectives.

How did you learn about AOR?
I’m an Oregonian who cares about waste, so I suppose AOR has always been on my radar.