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CLEVELAND — There’s still time to apply to become a Circular Cleveland Ambassador and help transition the city away from a “take-make-waste” model economy to one that reduces waste and pollution, and creates local, green jobs.

Circular Cleveland is a two-year initiative recently launched by the city of Cleveland and Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

​Cleveland Neighborhood Progress is a local community revitalization organization that supports and advances community development corporations. 

The overarching goal of Circular Cleveland is to move the city toward a system that keeps goods and materials in circulation, reusing and repairing products as long as possible, taking recycling to a new level to protect natural resources.

About 75% of municipal solid waste is made up of consumer goods, of which 80% is burned, landfilled or dumped because of poor design or the lack of better disposal options, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The foundation, considered an expert in circular economy, reports that $460 billion is wasted each year on clothing that’s thrown away around the globe. 

To give a circular economy momentum in Cleveland, organizers are looking for 10 individuals who are active in their communities and hungry to bring positive, institutional change to the city, said Divya Sridhar, climate resiliency and sustainability manager at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress.

“Recycling is not going to come back the way we once knew it,” Sridhar said. “I think there is going to be a big shift in how we look at resource management. And recycling is going to hopefully take a more positive spin… not going into the landfill, but becoming part of a cradle-to-cradle solution.”

Applicants have until midnight on Sunday, June 6, to submit an application. Ambassadors will receive training and support and serve from July 2021 through May 2023, dedicating 80 hours over 22 months and earning $1,400.

The Circular Cleveland team will consider people of all ages and backgrounds who are passionate about improving their community, Sridhar said. Ideally, the team wants creative problem solvers who already use some kind of waste reduction or circular economy practice or strategy at home, work or in their neighborhood.

“We are really looking for diversity across dimensions,” Sridhar said. “We want an intergenerational model, because we know that people have been doing this for a long time, and young people come fresh; old people have traditional knowledge.”

Ambassadors will be “resource people,” she said, helping connect their neighborhood to other communities, to share resources.

Circular Cleveland organizers are working closely with Neighborhood Connections, a community-building organization established by the Cleveland Foundation, which awards grants to various groups and for an array of projects around the city. Ambassadors could be found through groups already funded by Neighborhood Connections, whose grant application can be translated into 35 languages, she said.

“Circular systems are all about synergy and collaboration,” Sridhar said. “So we want different experiences to come in, in the form of applications.”

The city and Cleveland Neighborhood Progress also are currently partnering with a soon-to-be-announced organization that will help them create a road map for Circular Cleveland by early next year, she said. The ambassadors will be part of that effort, sharing what they hear from their community members, including new ideas.

“You know, people have been doing these kinds of things for a long time and not calling it a circular economy,” she said. “We are not starting from scratch.”