Arts + Media for Trash Free Waters

Community Arts + Media for Trash Free Waters
program in partnership with 3 NYC schools and communities
to reduce plastic street litter that becomes deadly marine pollution

See more videos from our Plastic Free Waters school programs ->

PS 15 students from 5th grade at Jamaica Bay surveying plastic litter.

COMMUNITY ARTS+MEDIA for TRASH FREE WATERS (CAM 4 TFW) was a school-community partnership and demonstration project led in three low-income, urban communities of Red Hook (PS 15 Patrick F. Daly) and East Flatbush (MS 246 Walt Whitman) in Brooklyn, and Manhattan's Alphabet City (PS 34 Franklin D. Roosevelt).

The primary project goal was to reduce plastic street litter through youth-led, citizen science, community-outreach, and engagement campaigns that focus on the negative environmental and health impacts of plastic marine pollution that originates as street litter.

Each partner school functioned as a project hub, where students took on leadership roles in their own community to conduct litter characterization studies and clean-ups, pilot reusable bag giveaways with local businesses, and designed creative messaging including, giant puppets, short videos, banners and social media campaigns.

The project videos are promoted one CafCu’s YouTube channel, hoping to inspire other low-income, public housing, and immigrant communities to replicate similar initiatives to reduce plastic street litter upstream.

Cafeteria Culture’s Community Arts+Media for Trash Free Waters program was made possible by a generous New York/New Jersey Aquatic Trash Prevention Program 2016 grant - awarded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 and New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC).

Additional support for this program came from Patagonia, Fund for the City of New York, and generous individual donors!
And special thanks to: our project partners:
- New York City Department of Education:

PS/MS 34 Franklin D Roosevelt - Alphabet City, Manhattan
PS 15 The Patrick F. Daly Magnet School of the Arts, Red Hook, Brooklyn
MS 246 Walt Whitman, East Flatbush, Brooklyn

- New York City Department of Environmental Protection;
- Gateway National Park Recreation Area, National Park Service and
- Brooklyn College.

PS 15 4th grade students imagined what it would be like to be marine creatures and wrote creature POV letters

Watch "Dear Humans" on YouTube; Watch on Vimeo ->

See the program in action at
PS 15 Patrick F. Daly school in Red Hook, Brooklyn

Watch "We Are Citizen Scientists" on Vimeo ->)

See the program in action at
MS 246 Walt Whitman on East Flatbush, Brooklyn

Watch "Got reusable bags? Youth kickstart BYO bag movement in Flatbush" on Vimeo ->

Watch "#SaveOurOceans - Your Litter is Killing Marine Life" on Vimeo->)

Watch "Kids Exercise Democracy! 5th graders testify at City Hall on plastic litter and wastewater" on Vimeo ->

Ready to start a PLASTIC FREE WATERS program at your school?
We will be sharing lesson plans and updates soon!
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Program Photo Gallery

PS 15 Patrick F. Daly, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NYC

MS 246 Walt Whitman - East Flatbush, Brooklyn, NYC

PS 34 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lower Eastside Girls Club, Alphabet City, Manhattan, NYC