“If I was going to come to a protest in a costume as a masked protester, for example, is now my mask finally a part of my expressive right to then wear that mask?” said public commenter Tom Helme [co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects]. “That’s how ridiculous it sounds.”
Juan Telles [project coordinator of VIP], who attended the 2020 protests, said that although those demonstrations got chaotic, there had been a sense of trust between protestors and law enforcement at the time. He recalled wearing a mask and helping shield officers who were cornered. Telles said that trust was broken during the June 14 protests, when five people were arrested for allegedly wearing masks. “I feel like a lot of trust was lost between my thoughts about the Police Department and how they handled themselves that day, because it was very similar to how ICE is going into communities and taking folks that look like me,” Telles said.
Modesto was among five California communities participating in a coordinated press conference as part of a day of action led by the Californians for Pesticide Reform. The event highlighted concerns over the state Department of Pesticide Regulation’s new rules on 1,3-dichloropropene and data showing increased use near schools and daycares. The press conference on Tenth Street Plaza in Modesto, hosted by the local nonprofit Valley Improvement Projects, was held alongside similar events in Watsonville, Fresno and Oxnard. DPR recently finalized regulations on 1,3-Dichloropropene that still permit exposure levels up to 14 times higher than the lifetime cancer risk threshold set by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, or OEHHA. While 1,3-D is banned in more than 40 countries, it’s still widely applied in Stanislaus County, particularly before planting sweet potatoes, almonds and cherries. “We oppose a system that treats children as acceptable collateral damage,” said Bianca Lopez, co-founder of VIP and member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee at the DPR.
A new report projects that moving toward a zero-waste economy could create 531,000 jobs in California. Stanislaus County activists already had their own plan for making trash easier to reuse, recycle or compost. And its vast food and beverage industries have taken some steps, mainly with packaging. The local plan, from Valley Improvement Projects, seeks at least 90% diversion by 2040, about double the current rate.
Modesto Bee: High-tech cars monitor Modesto and Stanislaus County air quality 24/7 (Sept. 15, 2025)
Edgar Garibay, project manager for Valley Improvement Projects, said his group held workshops not just in west and south Modesto but also on the West Side of the county, in Patterson. “There’s different sources of pollution, so each community shares some of the different sources of pollution and bad air quality in the community,” Garibay said. Through these workshops, community members drew up areas that they wanted monitored. Aclima now uses these community-driven maps to determine where to send their drivers.
Modesto Bee: Who is responsible for air quality oversight in Stanislaus County? (Aug. 26, 2025)
“The public agencies only have two regulatory monitors in Stanislaus County,” Edgar Garibay, program manager for Valley improvement Projects, said. “So if you live in Patterson, or if you live in Riverbank, you won’t know what your air quality is.” Garibay said the organization has worked to get members of the community out to the air district’s board meetings with the intention of getting more engagement on issues directly impacting them.
Edgar Garibay, a program manager for Valley Improvement Projects (VIP), led the session with a presentation on how to influence policymakers. “You have a lot of power in your community,” Garibay said. “You’re here because you’re invested and you want to see a community that is healthier.”
Laura Plascencia, a VIP community organizer, said it’s important to create safe spaces for people directly affected by issues instead of just posting on social media or expecting community members to make the trek downtown to be heard. “They’re leaving behind a great demographic of folks that have knowledge and experience– especially living in the area for so long,” Plascencia said. To facilitate attendance at “Breathe In, Speak Out, the event Wednesday evening included childcare, refreshments and Spanish translation.
“It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that the Stanislaus sheriff has a similar record of disproportionately using force against Black residents as the Modesto Police Department,” said Tom Helme, co-founder of the Modesto nonprofit Valley Improvement Projects and an ACLU NorCal volunteer. “The difference is, Modesto has taken steps towards being more transparent about law enforcement over the last few years, such as establishing a police review board and contracting with an independent auditor, both of which the sheriff has so far refused to consider.”
Bianca Lopez, co-founder of the environmental justice nonprofit Valley Improvement Projects, called the launch a significant step forward and a victory not just for California, but for the entire nation. “It’s launched in one of the most disadvantaged communities in the Central Valley, and it was because the people made it happen. That’s what’s most exciting about it,” she said.
Laura Plascencia, community organizer with Valley Improvement Projects, said they’ve been recommending and requesting CDPR to follow the cancer risk level set in 2022 by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Another concern is that DPR’s proposal accounts for only 40 years of work and assumes standard hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., which Plascencia said is “not representative of reality.” She explained that most farmworkers work longer hours and for more years, calling DPR’s calculations conservative.
Community Alliance: Rally Against Pesticide 1,3-D in Visalia (Feb. 2, 2025)
Bianca Lopez, executive director of Valley Improvement Projects, criticized the DPR for failing to follow scientific recommendations. “The DPR has ignored the legal limit of four parts per billion set by the OEHHA and instead chose 56 parts per billion. How did they get away with that? The science must drive our regulations, not racist politics.”
Edgar Garibay, Program Manager of Valley Improvement Project and one of the meeting’s organizers, explained the unique geographic hurdles of the San Joaquin Valley. “We live in some sort of bowl, like a cereal bowl, and everything that surrounds us stays in our communities,” he said. The Valley’s topography traps pollutants from major highways, diesel vehicles, tractors, wood-burning stoves, and industrial facilities, he said. To tackle these challenges, VIP has partnered with the Central California Asthma Coalition, Central California Environmental Justice Network and the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. These organizations are working to build an emissions reduction plan intended to help mitigate the impacts of local air pollution through the lens of environmental justice.
John Mataka of Valley Improvement Projects said he serves on a task force concerned with waste disposal and also ran into meeting cancellations. Bianca Lopez, also of VIP, and Mataka were grateful the evaluation committee recommended against options for keeping the plant in operation. “I am very excited that Covanta is leaving,” Lopez said, adding it’s now time to plan for reducing the wastes that go to landfills. Organic materials in landfills are considered a source of greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet.
“We are happy to finally see the last incinerator in California closing,” said John Mataka, a longtime advocate for environmental justice with Grayson Neighborhood Council and Valley Improvement Projects. “The West Side of Stanislaus County has been the dumping ground for incineration in the county and has suffered the cumulative health impacts of the incineration of trash and tires.”
“Reworld (Covanta) is expected to decommission and demolish the facility, which generates electricity and is criticized by environmental justice groups for toxic air emissions.”
Final Call: Environmental injustice and struggles facing Latino migrant farmworkers (Nov. 4, 2024)
Bianca Lopez is co-founder and project director of the Modesto, California-based Valley Improvement Projects (V.I.P.) for Social and Environmental Justice. She told The Final Call that her group is dedicated to social and environmental justice as a grassroots organization and that many communities dependent on wells for drinking and bathing are suffering hardship. “Water wells are depleting,” Ms. Lopez said of the increased water usage related to drought and the agricultural wells drilled deep into the valley’s aquifers. “Our water is contaminated in these wells due to agricultural runoff from animal feed and fertilizer, so we find a lot of nitrates and arsenic in our water. There are many communities across the Central Valley that do not have safe drinkable water,” she explained. “Pesticides are an air contaminant, but they also contaminate our water and our soil, and I know there are many oil wells in the Southern end of the valley that are shut off that are still emitting methane,” Ms. Lopez continued.
Organizations expressing opposition include Little Manila Rising, Valley Improvement Projects, Tree Stockton Foundation, Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center, Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, Sierra Club California, Partnership for Policy Integrity, Biofuelwatch, Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Center for Biological Diversity, and Green America.
“Placing the only export terminal in the middle of a community designated as disadvantaged under AB 617 and SB 535 flies in the face of California’s commitment to environmental justice communities like mine in Stockton. We are committed to thoroughly reviewing this draft environmental impact report: our air quality, lives, and livelihoods depend on it.” -Matt Holmes, Valley Improvement Projects
The county and its cities should explore more opportunities for reuse and refurbishing of discarded items, Bianca Lopez, co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects, said. As an example, Modesto holds bulky item collection and pickup events, but the only stuff recycled is electronic equipment; the rest is crushed and taken to the landfill, Lopez said. VIP has a Path to Zero Waste Plan with other recommendations:
The group hopes to see a countywide ban on single-use plastic items including grocery bags and water bottles. Funding could be sought for school districts to stop using plastic utensils in cafeterias and return to washing reusable trays and utensils. Communities will need water stations for refilling reusable bottles for residents. Some counties have secondhand stores at landfills for salvaging items that can be refurbished and resold. Modesto has a mattress recycling service and more could be developed. Diversion and processing of construction and demolition debris. A surplus food recovery program. Drop-off centers for bottles and cans. Loan programs for starting recycling and remanufacturing businesses that create jobs.
Waste Dive: Reworld to shut down California’s last MSW incinerator (Oct. 8, 2024)
Speaking at the virtual National Zero Waste Conference last week, Bianca Lopez, co-founder and project director at Valley Improvement Projects, said the county has an opportunity to build on the diversion work it began with a recycling program in the 1970s.
“The county and the municipalities in this area are constrained with capacity and funding, just as we all are,” Lopez said. “But … our infrastructure is very well and ready for us to advance on a lot of these programs and projects that we have highlighted.”
Lopez said policies like AB 1857 have helped her organization, in collaboration with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and other anti-incineration groups, “starve the beast” and end the use of incineration in the state. She said her organization was “celebrating” Reworld’s pending closure, in an emailed statement Monday.
“This is a huge win for our community, and we’re excited to work with the city and county to build a true zero-waste plan that not only keeps waste out of landfills but also creates green jobs and protects our air quality,” Lopez said.
NRDC: Golden State Natural Resources Faces Community Opposition in South Stockton (July 29, 2024)
“We are not anti-development and we are not anti-investment,” Senior Advisor for Valley Improvement Projects, Matt Holmes said. “What we are pushing for is development at the Port that doesn’t make us sacrifice our health and safety for our livelihoods. California promised Stockton additional protections when we were designated as a disadvantaged community under AB 617 and SB 535, and GSNR’s project completely flies in the face of those guarantees.”
Grayson resident John Mataka speaks outside the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock
Capitol Public Radio: Stanislaus County declares emergency over tomato pest (May 21, 2024)
Bianca Lopez with Valley Improvement Projects, an organization which advocates for social and environmentally conscious projects in the Central Valley, argued against using pesticides as it could cause birth defects and negatively affect pregnant people. “We want to make sure farmers can thrive, but if we keep using pesticides, they’re going to have to keep looking for other stronger pesticides to use while still contaminating our water and our soil,” she said.
“Edgar Garibay, project manager at Valley Improvement Projects, said they’ve received positive feedback from the mayor but want a commitment. He believes the city should also incentivize community members to provide their input. Ideally, the city will acknowledge the feedback received, commit to implementing suggested changes throughout their term and ensure that the first or final draft of the plan reflects these recommendations, he said.”
Stanislaus Connections: GET INVOLVED – The Stanislaus County Pesticides Safety Network (April 2024)
Matt Holmes, Senior Advisor for Valley Improvement Projects, said: “GSNR claims that the proposed project will create rural jobs, lessen wildfire risk and even improve air pollution levels. It would be great if any of that were true, but it’s just a sales pitch. This project would create more pollution, increase fire risk and provide only low-paying jobs with dangerous working conditions.”
Environmental advocates accused Stanislaus County leaders Tuesday of a lack of transparency on the garbage-burning plant and not providing reports in Spanish on services for farmworkers. “We need to stop burning waste,” said Bianca Lopez, president of the Valley Improvement Projects environmental group. The future of the waste-burning plant outside Crows Landing came into serious doubt when Covanta Energy informed the county in December that the incinerator was losing money every month and can’t continue to operate without a significant tipping-fee increase and delivery of more special waste.
“It is no longer viable for (Covanta) to do business at all in California,” said Bianca Lopez, president of the Valley Improvement Projects environmental justice group, speaking to county supervisors last week. The group is urging the county to set a goal for zero waste, a strategy adopted by an increasing number of metro areas to reduce municipal waste through reuse, recycling and conservation.
The facilities also remain a target of environmental justice groups who have campaigned against WTE facilities in California communities. Bianca Lopez, co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects, said that the rising number of facilities targeting organic waste will address the greenhouse gas emissions savings that WTE advocates argue incineration provides over landfilling. What’s more, Lopez said that shuttering WTE plants removes sources of dioxin, lead and nitrogen oxides that have existed for decades. She’s urging Stanislaus County to follow the lead of Long Beach and implement alternative solutions to waste, including an updated zero waste plan. “We are excited about the idea that Covanta will no longer be in our backyard, nor in any backyard in California,” Lopez said in an email. “While Covanta prides itself as a polluter who doesn’t pollute as much as allowed, they still pollute.”
KPFA (A Rude Awakening): Bianca Lopez, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla and Scott Artis (Feb. 2, 2024)
“Burning Injustice is a powerful short documentary from The Story of Stuff Project that follows the inspiring journey of Latino activists, John Mataka and Bianca Lopez of Valley Improvement Projects, as they lead a tireless effort to permanently close one of the last trash incinerators in California. The film exposes the devastating health consequences of incinerator pollution in California’s Central Valley, and amplifies activists’ calls for environmental justice and a safer future for their community.”
“A delegation of community and labor leaders, including representatives from Faith in the Valley, Latino Community Roundtable, Valley Improvement Projects and the North Valley Labor Federation, visited the Kingspan plant after the charges were filed.”
Recently, the Central Valley Opportunity Center organized a Farmworker Roundtable meeting to outline the planned allocation of $1 million for both documented and undocumented farmworkers. Several attendees were Spanish speakers. Although there was a Spanish interpreter present, the slides and documents were in English only, said John Mataka, a community advocate from Grayson with Valley Improvement Projects . There were plans to redo the roundtable as a Spanish-language event, but it has since been canceled and not rescheduled. Mataka, 72, said he’s observed that many community members are uninformed about what is going on in the county. More accessibility would make people more comfortable in participating in the decision-making process, he said. “People have the right to know about these big projects, where the money is going, how it’s going to affect them in the appropriate language so they can make a judgment in one way or the other,” Mataka said.
The Story of Stuff Project: ‘Burning Injustice’ Trailer (Oct. 13, 2023)
The council heard over Zoom from activist Bianca Lopez, co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects. She said she lives near the railroad tracks, where idling freight trains already foul the air. “So while I am in support of jobs, and green jobs, and union jobs and well-paying jobs, this is not a green business,” Lopez said.
Getting to a “zero waste” economy is one of the key goals at Valley Improvement Projects, founded in Modesto in 2012. The group envisions jobs in recycling, composting and related businesses. It also calls for closure of the power plant that has burned trash near Crows Landing since 1989. Panelist Laura Plascencia works as a community organizer for VIP. She graduated last year from Stanislaus State University, where she explored climate topics through the College Corps. “These issues with air quality are worldwide,” Plascencia said. “… How can we make this more accessible and have clean natural resources for everybody?”
Resource Recycling: CalRecycle names its first packaging EPR advisory board (July 10, 2023)
Today, my guest Bianca Lopez of the Valley improvement Projects will discuss how she and the VIP organization is working diligently to bring our voices to the California State policy making tables for lower emissions programs and pesticide notification technology and data solutions for our Latino and BIPOC central valley communities.
On Monday, a local group will hold the first of four workshops about zero waste, a concept that aims to reduce waste through so-called lifecycle design and management. Valley Improvement Projects, a Central Valley environmental and social justice advocacy group, and Zero Waste USA will present a hybrid workshop at 5 p.m. titled “Zero Waste: For a just transition to a more sustainable future.” The two organizations are advocating for Modesto and Stanislaus County to transition away from using the Covanta waste-to-energy incinerator on Fink Road. “One of the issues that Valley Improvement Projects was kind of founded around was the fact that we have one of the last trash incinerators in the state of California over near Crows Landing,” Tom Helme, VIP co-founder and project director, said. “It used to be one out of three, now it’s only one out of the last two.”
A new father drove home from the hospital in downtown Modesto, scared — not by having a newborn baby, but by smoke-filled, “apocalyptic-looking skies.” Tom Helme couldn’t see past the next stoplight on the flat, straight road ahead. On that fall day in 2017, it was dark, he said, “like if a nuclear bomb went off, or something blocked the sun.” The San Joaquin Valley was already years into what regulators now say is a downward slide in air quality, choked by smoke from frequent wildfires.
In Modesto, Helme first heard about exceptional events more than a year before his son’s birth, as a member of an environmental justice advisory group that meets with regulators. Officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District had explained to the group that federal law permitted communities to avoid tighter regulation when pollution is “outside the control of the region.” Helme says that at that meeting, he wondered out loud whether smoke from fires was going to become the norm. “Do you picture a time when it’s not going to be considered exceptional because it happens every single year?” he asked. “And what are our options with that?”
Modesto Bee: Protecting people from farm pesticides in Stanislaus County (March 1, 2023)
“Toxic pesticides are applied to Stanislaus fields and orchards near 123 schools. Students who attend these schools, or live near where pesticides are applied, face higher health risks. Valley Improvement Projects, alongside others, is fighting for better protection at the state level. But we should not wait for a relatively new Legislature to protect our local community if we have the power to implement local protective measures.”
Environmental Working Group: The health risks of pesticides in Stanislaus County (Jan. 31, 2023)
“Telone is one of the most used highly toxic pesticides in Stanislaus County. It is used on fields before planting almonds, in particular, and other crops, including sweet potatoes, walnuts and fruits. Its main ingredient is a chemical known as 1,3-dichloropropene, or 1,3-D. California has identified 1,3-D as a cancer-causing chemical under the state’s Proposition 65 warning and notice program. Once applied, it can drift – in this case, miles from the initial site of application.”
Waste Dive: What environmental justice mapping tools mean for the waste industry (Jan. 5, 2023)
“Helme found that CalEnviroScreen had its own constraints, where the data is limited to census tracts. EJScreen data is primarily available at the smaller, block group level. These parameters can sometimes skew results in large rural areas where smaller communities may see effects, but wide census tracts may dilute that data.”
Tom Helme, an environmental activist in Modesto with the Valley Improvement Projects explained, the Valley air district and CARB “know pretty well that there’s a network of air quality and environmental justice nonprofits in the San Joaquin Valley that are pretty well organized and used to reaching out to communities all through the Valley.” He said the funding decisions for this program seemed “lopsided.”
Modesto Bee: Can California do better to alert neighbors of farm spraying? Absolutely (Aug. 3, 2022)
The program wouldn’t truly be providing equitable access if it can’t communicate the information in a language that they understand, said Bianca Lopez, co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects, an environmental justice nonprofit. “If our region has these languages… we should be able to do that,” she said.
“A new report compiled by environmental advocates has them calling for the closure of California’s last two standing waste-to-energy facilities as findings show their harmful impact. The Covanta Stanislaus incinerator and the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) in Long Beach tout themselves as producers of clean power. But little energy is emitted, and it’s generated at the expense of the public’s health, environment and finances, according to the report “Vestiges of Environmental Racism: Closing California’s Last Two Municipal Waste Incinerators.” As contracts for the incinerators are set to expire within a couple of years, members of Valley Improvement Projects (VIP), EarthJustice and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice are calling on local and state governments to take action.”
Women’s Earth Alliance: Pushing forward environmental justice in Stanislaus County (Dec. 2021)
“Bianca is a resident of California’s Central Valley, born in Guadalajara, Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, California. She is a bilingual Chicana mother of two young boys. Currently, she is a Project Director for Valley Improvement Projects, a non-profit organization focused on social and environmental justice in Stanislaus County and is passionate about working with youth.”
Large rate increases would burden low-income residents, said Bianca Lopez, co-founder and project director at the nonprofit Valley Improvement Projects. She spoke at the Nov. 9 meeting of the Modesto City Council. But Lopez also cited benefits of the state law and urged the city to work toward a “zero waste” goal. This would mean no longer burning garbage to generate electricity at the plant that opened in 1989 next to the Fink Road landfill on the West Side, she said. “… we can make more green jobs if we don’t burn our waste and we properly dispose of our waste and reduce our waste in good faith,” Lopez said.
The Better Modesto Show: Valley Improvement Projects with Thomas Helme (Oct. 3, 2021)
CJAN youth coordinator Morgan Haydock said her passion to fight for her community began in spring 2018, during her freshman year at Turlock’s Pitman High School, when an estimated 700 people joined the March For Our Lives to demand gun reform. “That just got me a lot more aware of the problems that we face in our community,” she said. So when the Modesto Peace/Life Center and Valley Improvement Projects approached her with the opportunity to lead the effort, the now-18-year-old didn’t hesitate. Now a student at Modesto Junior College, Haydock said she will continue her advocacy efforts as she hopes to make a real difference in her community.
NRDC: No More Secrets: CA Needs Community Pesticide Notification (May 7, 2021)
California must not continue ignoring the voices of community members like Bianca Lopez, founder of Modesto-based Valley Improvement Projects: “As long as our agricultural system continues to depend on vast inputs of pesticides, the state must do better at letting people know what’s planned on our farms and fields. Many of these chemicals are highly toxic and yet they continue to be sprayed by the millions of pounds on our food crops, right next to homes and schools, endangering residents and workers alike. The lack of transparency needs to end. We want to know where and when those 200 million pounds are being sprayed before it happens, not years after.”
“I am disgusted to my core listening to this nonsense conversation, and I am just baffled by the language that is being used, especially by the chair (Zoslocki),” said Lopez, co-founder of Valley Improvement Projects, a nonprofit dedicated to social and environmental justice in Stanislaus County, at Tuesday’s workshop. “… What you just said right now about ‘I’m going to talk to all the moms and dads to train your kids,’ FU. FU. Do you know why? Is that what you are going to tell Darlene Ruiz? That her son should have just complied when his hands were up and Joseph Lamantia shot him within nine seconds of getting there? Disgusted.”
Modesto Bee: How to recapture Modesto’s legacy as a recycling leader (March 28, 2021)
“This incinerator needs to burn 800 tons of waste every day to maximize profits, so no curbside recycling means recyclables get thrown in the trash and Covanta has more to burn. It may be just a coincidence, but construction of this incinerator began in 1985, not long after the city of Modesto took over Ecology Action’s curbside recycling program and began rolling it back from bins, to buckets, to bags, to nonexistence. Not only does incineration disincentivize recycling and waste-reduction efforts, it emits harmful pollutants like particulate matter and nitrogen oxides as well as toxic metals like dioxins, lead, and mercury.”
“Thomas Helme of Modesto with Valley Improvement Projects said he knows many farmers who care about the health of the Valley, including a grower at an almond orchard who has been using the alternative method of chipping since 1989. He also knows there are illegal burns; he’s seen them. “I know some. They burn them in smaller piles. They burn them early in the morning, try to do it quick, sometimes throwing in non-organic materials so they don’t have to dump it,” Helme told CARB at the hearing.”
Modesto Town Hall: Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (Feb. 21, 2021)
“Right now, there are two incinerators in the state of California, both located in and near communities of color. Modesto is one of the most populated cities in California without a basic curbside recycling program, which we believe is due to the contracts with local municipalities that require sending 800 tons of material per day to the incinerator. They want to make the maximum amount of profit, regardless of the health and economic consequences on the local community,” said Thomas Helme, Co-Founder and Project Director of Valley Improvement Projects.
Women of the Valley: Episode 17: Bianca Lopez, Valley Improvement Projects Revisited (Sep. 12, 2020)
“Bianca Lopez, co-founder and project director at Valley Improvement Projects, talked to about 30 agricultural workers living in the county for the COVID-19 Farmworkers Study that documents conditions in one of the most hardest hit industries since the coronavirus began sweeping through the United States in March. Some of these Central Valley laborers, who now work in a national hotspot for the spread of COVID-19, told her they were afraid of getting fired for asking for more safety measures.”
Modesto Bee: Modesto must adopt civilian oversight of police (Aug. 16, 2020)
“The heartbreaking murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day weekend has ignited a national conversation that promises to finally address the intertwined problems of police brutality, mass incarceration and structural racism, as well as the economic inequality that undergirds those injustices.”
Women of the Valley: Episode 2: Bianca Lopez, Valley Improvement Projects (March 19, 2020)
“The California plant closed in June 2018 after a yearlong campaign by two community-based organizations, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and Valley Improvement Projects, to prevent incineration from qualifying for state renewable energy subsidies.”
Environmental Justice Program: Valley Improvement Projects Recycling Interview (May 30, 2019)
“Thomas Helme, an environmental justice advocate in Stanislaus County, Calif., said he and other organizers there have long been concerned about carpet waste. He hadn’t read the report, but his organization, Valley Improvement Projects, has been advocating for increased carpet recycling in the county. Western Stanislaus County is home to one of only two trash incinerators in the state, he said. The incinerator is located in a largely poor, agricultural and industrial community, he said. Helme said organizers believe air pollution from the incinerator, including burned carpet, is contributing to other toxins in the air.”
Recycling Today: CalRecycle disapproves industry plan to recycle carpet (May 29, 2018)
Floor Covering Weekly: New bill aims to reduce carpet waste (Oct. 17, 2017)
Modesto Bee Burning carpet at Crows Landing poisons the air; it needs to stop (July 10, 2017)
Modesto Bee: Modesto group calls for resignation of judge, top prosecutor (June 29, 2016) – Video
KCRA: Group fights for curbside recycling in Modesto (Oct. 26, 2015)
Modesto Bee: MONDAY Q&A: Modesto nonprofit takes on social, environmental issues (July 2, 2014)
