WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES FEBRUARY 10, 2022 3
Ridgewood artist helps create new educational
program for city’s Department of Sanitation
BY JULIA MORO
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
A Ridgewood artist helped creatively
direct and illustrate the
Sanitation Foundation and NYC
Department of Sanitation’s (DSNY)
new Follow Your Waste interactive
game to promote sustainability in
schools.
Follow Your Waste is a game that
shows kids ages 8 and up the journey
trash takes through the city. The
program has a $1,000 prize to spend
on sustainability programs in schools.
When playing Follow Your Waste,
users learn how to sort trash and recycling
then see where it goes aft er being
collected. The game also includes
facts about DSNY, the nation’s largest
municipal solid waste and sustainability
agency. The game is available
in English, Spanish and Chinese.
Haruka Aoki, a longtime Ridgewood
resident, built and designed the game
with a team of other artists. Aoki said
that this game is a passion project for
her and her teammates.
“We all came on as volunteers so we
had a lot of passion for the Department
of Sanitation,” Aoki said. “This game
really makes it clear how to properly
throw out waste. A lot of people don’t
know where the trash actually goes.
And it’s very accessible — it’s been
translated into Spanish and Chinese.
I think it’s just a great educational
platform.”
The game also introduces players
to the many faces behind DSNY in the
“Meet the Workers” section. There are
10,000 people who remove 12,000 tons
of trash and recycling from the streets
each day.
“For me personally, sanitation
workers were kind of like heroes
as a kid,” Aoki said. “Growing up in
New York City, sometimes if you were
awake late enough, you would see
them or hear them. But by the next
day, you see all that trash taken away.
I felt so thankful that these sanitation
workers were helping keep our city
clean.”
DSNY and the Sanitation Foundation,
the official nonprofit partner
of DSNY, will be awarding $1,000 in
spring 2022 to NYC K-12 public schools
who participate in the new Follow
Your Waste program and commit to a
waste diversion project.
Ridgewood resident Haruka Aoki helped creatively direct and illustrate
the Department of Sanitation’s new Follow Your Waste campaign.
Courtesy of DSNY
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