Earth Day @ Sure We Can!
Celebrate Earth Day at Sure We Can! Join us for a day of fun and stewardship to celebrate our planet. From 11-1 we'll do a street clean up in the surrounding neighborhood. After an hour break for lunch, from 2-4 we'll do some seed planting for the Sure We Can garden (where we grow produce to give to our community members), and bottle and can recycle sorting to support our recycling operations. Volunteers are welcome to join for just the morning, just the afternoon, or both!
Sure We Can is a non-profit recycling center, community space and sustainability hub in Brooklyn where canners-our neighbors who collect cans and bottles from the streets to make a living-come together with the broader community through recycling, composting, gardening and the arts.
BKO Volunteer Day
Join BROOKLYN ORG to learn from Sure We Can staff and community members about the day-to-day work of bottle and can collecting and sorting. Volunteers will participate in sorting materials that will then be directly recycled! No particular special skills are required, just a willingness to get a little dirty and to help us dig through the valuable materials that others throw away!
Ages 7+ w/ guardian, 14+ without
New York is not Disposable Advocacy Day
Join us on Weds, May 7 at the NY State Capitol in Albany to urge your state legislators to put people over plastic by passing the Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill. Together, these critical bills will address the crisis of planet-warming, ocean-polluting, landfill-clogging, human health-harming single-use plastics by reducing them at the source while saving taxpayers money and providing support for recycling and reuse efforts.
E-Waste Collection Event with LES Ecology Cnter
Bring your e-waste to be recycled at Sure We Can!
"Five Cents a Can" Art Exhibit & Panel
Join us on March 29th for a panel: Redeeming New York: NYS Bigger Better Bottle Bill, a conversation with Blair Horner of NYPIRG, Laurie Konwinski of Catholic Charities, and Ryan Castalia of Sure We Can, led by artist Siyan Wong.
“Three Cities” by Siyan Wong
“A multimedia exhibition exploring the lives of the “canners” who make their livelihood collecting recyclable beverage containers. Featuring the paintings of Chinese-American visual artist and activist Siyan Wong, alongside installations and video works by Wong and filmmaker Alvin Tsang. Canvases by painter Mark Gaston Pearce (chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama) explore the larger tapestry of labor in America.”
Exhibition: March 28 – May 3
Satellite Site Grand Opening & Press Conference
We’re finally ready to open our first-ever satellite redemption center! 🎉
Join us in celebrating the grand opening on Saturday, March 1st—International Waste Pickers’ Day—with a press conference at 12 followed by a reception.
Satellite Site Volunteer Day
Join us at the brand new Sure We Can satellite site pre-opening from 11am-5pm to help us beautify the site! We'll be painting shipping containers, prepping planters with soil, and flyering in the neighborhood! No need to come for the whole time, just drop by whenever you can and stay as long as you'd like!
Location: Under Broadway Junction, 1762 E New York Ave, Brooklyn NY
Bigger Better Bottle Bill Advocacy Day
On Tuesday, January 28, 2025, grassroots volunteers and organizations will gather in Albany to urge the NY Legislature to adopt the Bigger Better Bottle Bill and the Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act! These bills will help cut single-use plastic, address plastic pollution, reduce emissions, protect environmental justice communities, increase reuse, and give recycling a much-needed lifeline by making producers pay for their packaging waste.
Volunteer Day
Join us for a volunteer day to learn from Sure We Can staff and community members about the day-to-day work of bottle and can collecting and sorting. Volunteers will participate in sorting materials that will then be directly recycled! No particular special skills are required, just a willingness to get a little dirty and to help us dig through the valuable materials that others throw away!
Make sure to dress warm as this event will take place outdoors.
Age requirements: All Ages! 14+ can join w/o guardian. Under 14 years guardian required.
Fundraiser Launch!
Day 1 of our end of year fundraiser!
We’re announcing a very special milestone–the opening of our first expansion site, a new redemption center in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York!
We'll be transforming an empty 3,500 sqft lot right under Broadway Junction into another community oriented and supportive redemption center. With your help, we will raise $30,000 by the end of the year towards this exciting expansion!!
Learn more & donate: 🔗 bit.ly/swc-satellite
One of the first 20 donors who give over $20 will be randomly selected to win a free Sure We Can hoodie!
Sure We Can Birthday & Halloween Party!
Join us to celebrate Sure We Can's 17th birthday, spooky style, with an afternoon of costumes, games, pumpkin carving, refreshments, live music, and more!
Open House New York festival
On October 20th, from 12-4, we're opening our doors for the 22nd Annual Open House New York Weekend festival!
Virtual event: How a modernized Bottle Bill can reduce waste and what you can do to help!
Join the Bottle Bill 40 Coalition and New York is Not Disposable on Tuesday, October 8 at 6pm for a virtual, info-and-action-packed, energizing hour focused on reducing trash, litter, and climate emissions with the New York Bigger Better Bottle Bill.
The Bottle Bill has been one of the most effective recycling bills in New York's history - and it needs critical updates to recover billions more containers from the waste stream, promote environmental justice, reduce single-use plastic bottles, and support green jobs. The Bigger Better Bottle Bill has been introduced by Senator May (S237-C) and Assemblymember Glick (A6353-A).
Volunteer Event with Plastic Free
Join us for a Sure We Can Volunteer day hosted along side Plastic Free!
Volunteer Day
Join us for a volunteer day to learn from Sure We Can staff and community members about the day-to-day work of bottle and can collecting and sorting. Volunteers will participate in sorting materials that will then be directly recycled! No particular special skills are required, just a willingness to get a little dirty and to help us dig through the valuable materials that others throw away!
Age requirements: All Ages! 14+ can join w/o guardian. Under 14 years guardian required.
Film Screening at Patagonia
Join us at Patagonia Soho for a film screening and discussion of The Fourth Kingdom / El Cuatro Reino, a documentary film following community members of Sure We Can.
Through careful, compassionate filmmaking and a transcendental approach to urban imagery, El Cuarto Reino (The Fourth Kingdom) explores the inner and outer lives of those who, in the face of the intense hardship and alienation imposed on them as cultural outsiders--undocumented, disabled, forgotten, or otherwise excluded--find their own way toward belonging and community among the material detritus of the 21st century.
Join us after the film for drinks and a discussion panel
Volunteer Day
Join us for a volunteer day to learn from Sure We Can staff and community members about the day-to-day work of bottle and can collecting and sorting. Volunteers will participate in sorting materials that will then be directly recycled! No particular special skills are required, just a willingness to get a little dirty and to help us dig through the valuable materials that others throw away!
Age requirements: All Ages! 14+ can join w/o guardian. Under 14 years guardian required.
NYS Capital Advocacy day for the Bigger Better Bottle Bill
Please join the New York is NOT Disposable Coalition to meet with your state representatives in Albany to help get two critical bills -- the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S4246-b/A5322-b) and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill (S237/A6353) -- to reduce single-use plastics and increase reuse, refill and recycling over the finish line this spring!
