Staff and Partners
Our Staff
Warren Heyman
is Organizing Director of the RI School Recycling Project. Warren is a recent retiree from UniteHere, the North American union for food service and hospitality workers. While employed at UniteHere, he trained workers to organize unions, negotiate union agreements, and work with local community and political leaders. Prior to that, he was a VISTA volunteer in Worcester and Chelsea, Massachusetts where he organized low-income neighborhoods and trained neighborhood leaders to fight for and win improvements. He is also currently a member of the Cranston Neighborhood Tree Group and the Edgewood/Pawtuxet Village Wildflower group. He has been married since the early 1980s with two grown children and a dog, and loves riding his bike in his free time.
Our Partners
The RI Department of Environmental Management is a partner in the Get Food Smart, RI project. They incorporate the RI Food Strategy to improve local food development initiatives, support programs to eliminate food insecurity, and to reduce food waste. Our partners, Senior Environmental Scientist Michele McCaughey and Sustainable Materials Management Engineer Alyson Brunelli, are leaders in environmental protection in the area of Food Waste Diversion. We are fortunate to have such distinguished experts guiding us in our mission.
The Center for Eco Technology is all about solutions to the problem of wasted food – and they’ve been at it for more than 20 years. CET implemented some of the first composting programs in the country. Their over-arching goal is to show that managing wasted food is critical to address climate change, feed more hungry people, and grow the economy. This national leader in food waste reduction will create a Sector Spotlight for Get Food Smart, RI working under a grant provided by RI DEM.
The Environmental Council of Rhode Island Education Fund was incorporated in 1991 as a separate 501(c)(3) recognized non-profit organization to sponsor research and education to accomplish its mission: Enhancing the Long-Term Stewardship of Rhode Island’s Natural Resources. The goal of the Fund is to create materials and programs designed to educate Rhode Island’s citizens about environmental health and natural resource protection and restoration. We are fortunate to have had the support of ECRI in our recycling initiatives for almost two decades.
Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation handles trash and recycling for the entire state. Their 1,040-acre facility in Johnston is home to five operations that process it all, from recyclables to yard debris to household hazardous waste to the trash that fills the landfill. They are happy to give your school a presentation on Food Waste Prevention, as well as a tour of the Materials Recycling Facility and landfill. You might be surprised at how fascinating a place this is!
Slaying waste since 2011, Bootstrap Compost is a leading compost pickup service operating throughout Boston, Providence and Worcester. Partnering with local farms, Bootstrap diverts thousands of pounds of organic material from landfills every day. Our farms benefit from our compost in the production of crops while each Bootstrap customer receives a portion of black gold for their own gardening projects. In addition to hauling food scraps from RI schools, Bootstrap’s team conducts “How to Compost” workshops for student Green Teams.
Black Earth Compost is a leading food scrap collection and composting company in Eastern MA & RI. They take compostables that were once destined for either incinerators or landfills and compost the material themselves, returning it to customers and selling it in garden centers. Black Earth Compost is ready to work with Rhode Island schools to haul food scraps away from the Central Landfill and do their part to protect, heal and strengthen our environment for future generations.
