According to Executive Director Jasmine Brown, the local non-profit The Green Project focuses on three main aspects: recycling, waste aversion, and creative reuse/sustainability. 

She said the popularity of the non-profit is due to their wide number of accessible resources and affordability. Shoppers who need screws for their houses, art supplies for projects, or materials for companies can shop at affordable prices, which many other places in the city do not offer, she said. 

“Affordability is the biggest reason we are here,” Brown said, “We’re more accessible and I think it’s a benefit to the community to be able to have somewhere to get something that is affordable.” 

A key mission of the organization is to provide affordability and repurpose waste. It is a place where locals can purchase what materials they need without spending excessively at mainstream corporate industries. 

The Green Project serves as a hub for recycling, community welfare, environmental education, and affordable resources in New Orleans. According to Erin Genrich, program manager of environmental education and outreach, all paint managed by the project is kept out of waterways, curbing energy used to produce new paint, eliminating the amount of paint dumped into soil, and providing affordable and legitimate options for the community.

Brown said the non-profit organization’s goal is to reduce the amount of paint that enters the city’s waterways and drainage systems. Another positive aspect of the process is that it reduces the city’s expenses and funds for disposing of waste. 

“We are saving the city quite a bit of money by being here and taking paint from the community for free. I shudder to think what would happen to all that stuff if we weren’t here on a daily basis” Genrich said. 

According to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Office’s capacity report in 2021, approximately 931,164 wet-tons of commercial and residential waste were disposed of in Lousianna’s municipal solid waste landfills. According to Waste 360 in 2023, the city of New Orleans produces approximately 173,000 tons of trash per year cumulatively.

“Every year, we prevent 40,000 gallons of paint from being dumped down the drain, reclaim 2 million pounds of materials, and educate over 700 local students and residents,” according to The Green Project. 

Genrich said many of New Orleans’s schools cannot afford to recycle, so The Green Project took the initiative to offer educational programs for K-12 about recycling responsibility, curbside recycling, and its effect on the environment. 

“We are here to meet the needs of the community, and so that’s what I am doing with teachers is trying to meet their needs,” Genrich said. 

Genrich said she teaches in local classrooms about recycling and organizes educational programs for schools in the area to take on-site field trips to the warehouse to blend recycled paint colors to sell. 

“It makes sense why schools reach out to The Green Project because we recycle paint and we are a creative-reuse organization,” she said. 

Genrich said all profits from the recycled paints and the M.E.S.S Lab return to the program. The Green Project is a creative reuse organization where students are taught how to advertise their hand-made paint color and include why it is the best color to purchase. Students then have their paint up for purchase at the warehouse. 

Brown said The Green Project’s environmental education programs stand out. “We are the only place of the first of its kind, right in the Gulf South,” Brown said. 

Brown said Tulane University has partnered with The Green Project to recruit volunteer students to service the paint yard, which requires constant care. Citizens in need of community hours are welcomed to volunteer, and Brown said they often come to The Green Project because of its accessibility. 

“Usually they have to come to a place like us because we’re more accessible and we don’t discriminate in terms of who we accept. We accept everybody,” Brown said. 

Genrich said she fell in love with the community.

“It’s an amazing, colorful, diverse, creative experience working here with the people that come in, donate, shop, work and volunteer here– it is a very cool place,” she said.

Brown said the organization is a diverse community. 

“I think we work with a very, I wanna say, prominent mixture of people. But I think we’re a need and necessity for the people [of New Orleans] in terms of the service and programming that we do,” Brown said. 

The project’s primary source of funding comes from in-kind donated materials that the Salvation Store sells, along with individual fiscal donations. Large organizations also donate to the annual Salvation gala and design competition. 

Brown said it is substantially more feasible for people to get reused or refurbished materials than it is not. 

“There are a lot of people still throwing paint in the garbage or in drains. They [paint stores] are not telling you what to do with your paint, or provide instructions on the paint buckets,” she said. 

There needs to be more information, transparency, and responsibility about sustainable disposal. 

Some do not know that paint can be recycled or how to dispose of it properly. The Green Project’s mission is to change this.