The North Brooklyn Parks Alliance gathered leaders from nightlife, public space, sanitation and environmental advocacy at a summit on March 31 to examine how large-scale events in New York City can cut the waste they send to landfill and what it would take to expand those practices citywide.
The event, billed as “Ready or Not, Recycle! An Evening on the Future of Low-Waste Events in NYC,” ran from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at Vesper, 25 Kent Ave., on the venue’s fourth floor in Brooklyn, according to the organization, which is also known as NBK Parks. The organization described the program as a cross-sector panel summit and said it required an RSVP because space was limited.
NBK Parks framed the evening around a single question, which it posed as whether New York can celebrate at scale without sending all event waste to landfill. The organization said it has been testing what sanitation reform could look like in real time, piloting new approaches to how concerts, festivals and large public gatherings manage and reduce waste. At Under the K Bridge Park, the alliance said, its events help sustain year-round maintenance and programming for parks and open spaces across North Brooklyn, and it pointed to a sustainability pilot at that site that it said was on track to divert a significant share of waste, though the figure was cut off in the announcement.
The alliance said the summit drew an expected audience of venue operators, city agencies, park leaders, producers and sustainability innovators working at the intersection of nightlife and climate, and that its broader aim was to explore how culture and climate responsibility can move forward together as events and concessions increasingly help fund public space across the city.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso was billed as the keynote speaker, described by NBK Parks as leading the borough’s climate and waste agenda. The program also featured a moderated panel and a fireside chat, the organization said.
According to materials circulated by Biederman LLC, which handled press for the summit, that conversation paired Rafael Espinal, the new commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, who oversees the city’s nightlife and cultural economy, with Ellyn Canfield, who NBK Parks identified as executive director of NYC World Cup operations in the Office of the Mayor, leading the city’s planning for the global tournament. NBK Parks separately described both as appearing “in conversation.”
The publicity materials listed additional participants including Ryan Castalia, executive director of Sure We Can, a nonprofit the alliance said champions canners and community-based recycling; Peter Mercury, resident eco-artist and sustainability spokesperson at House of Yes; Michael Cyr, an account executive at Boro-Wide; Carol Smolenski, an anti-waste advocate with Beyond Plastics; and Clare Newman, president and CEO of the Trust for Governors Island.
NBK Parks said the program would include cocktails, conversation and real-world solutions. The organization listed Karrie Witkin of NBK Parks and Sam Biederman of Biederman LLC as press contacts.
