Anna Sacks

Anna — known online as 'The Trash Walker' — has spent nearly a decade rummaging through New York City's garbage, gathering half a million curious followers along the way. On these trash walks, Anna has found more than just waste. She’s identified patterns of schools, facilities and businesses disposing mountains of usable things that end up in landfills and incinerators every single day.

Anna has dedicated her career to improving circularity in NYC: working as a senior waste reduction consultant, serving as Legislative Chair of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board, and co-founding the Save Our Compost coalition. Now, she wants to build the world’s first Office of Circularity, which will pilot new waste reduction ideas that the government can adopt, build coalitions to scale what’s already working, and advocate for legislation that embeds circularity across sectors. In the short term, the Office will focus on piloting a monthly free furniture day, securing municipal funding for community swaps, and passing legislation to expand the creative reuse center Materials for the Arts to all five boroughs.