All bottled up

Henry Goodelman is the founder of ReJews, an initiative that promotes recycling in Jewish organizations and offices around the world. He works as an admissions counselor at Touro College and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

How did you get started?

When I was in Aish in Eretz Yisrael three years ago, I realized we didn’t have access to recycling—there were no cans, no collections, no drop-off points. Do you know how many plastic bottles 150 yeshivah boys go through in a day? Exactly. We designed and implemented a program—we placed bins across the campus and a few of us volunteered to collect and deliver the bottles to the recycling bin in the Old City. That’s right—the recycling bin, because there’s just one there. We spoke to the mayor’s office, but adding bins was difficult—the streets are narrow and winding, so even garbage pickup is complicated. They encouraged us but couldn’t really do more about the recycling right then.

How does the frum community measure on the sustainability awareness scale?

Not so great. When I got back to America, I was surprised—as a people, we really don’t recycle. I know we’re all busy—families, school, work, running to simchahs—and recycling comes really low on the totem pole, but it doesn’t have to be something you worry about, it should just be something you do— like you take out your garbage. Same with recycling, it should just be part of your day. I often describe ReJews as a ‘benign initiative’ because it’s just recycling.

Is there one small, easily implementable act people can do?

Funny you ask, we’ve actually chosen one as our focus. We’re targeting bottles—a really specific goal. It’s relevant and it’s constant, because people are always drinking, so recycling bottles will accomplish something. If you recycle 10 percent more bottles a year from now than you are presently, that’s a major achievement.