Sustainable South Bronx
Majora Carter, Founder and Executive Director
Sustainable South Bronx (SSB) is a community-based organization created in 2001 in implement sustainable development projects for the South Bronx informed by community needs and values of environmental justice. A long history of racial and class discrimination in land use decisions and housing has located the worst polluting waste-transfer stations, truck-dependent warehouses, and highways in the neighborhood. Inspired by the potential of creating environmentally safe spaces in the South Bronx, SSB addresses concerns in areas such as transportation, energy, water, waste and land use and provides neighborhood groups with the information and skills to ensure informed participation and maintain community control.
Current projects projects being developed include constructing a continuous greenway path from the Bronx River to Randall’s Island, turning an abandoned cement plant into a neighborhood park, building a sculpture garden on the south side of Bruckner Boulevard and creating a local green market. With the Southern Bronx Rover Watershed Alliance, SSB is advocating for the decommissioning of the Sheridan Expressway in order to open up 28 acres of park land along the Bronx River. SSB was an organizer of the National Alternative Fuels Day and Environmental Summit and has initiated the Bronx River Restoration Workforce Development Project, an apprenticeship program to train South Bronx residents to cleanup and care for the Bronx River. SSB believes that it is possible to transform one the city’s most polluted areas into a place where residents can breathe clean air, sit in a park by the river and work in businesses along its edges.